There is so much being made about the best options trading strategy with Apple stock, $AAPL, heading into its 4 for 1 stock split on August 31, 2020. The first thing to figure out is the time frame to be in the trade, is it one week, two weeks, four weeks two months, six months, or even maybe a year out. Then, within that time frame what direction bias is most likely. Is $AAPL going to go up or down by more than 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%? Or, is $AAPL stock going to be within a certain price range?

Once a time frame and direction is picked then the following strategies should be studied carefully to see which ones offer the highest reward and lower risk overall if the expectation by expiration is met or unmet.

For Risk Defined Bullish Directional Trades:

  • Buy a bull call options spread
  • Sell a put bear options spread
  • Buy a Call butterfly with the guts at the target price
  • Buy a Condor options call spread

For Risk Defined Bearish Directional Trades:

  • Sell a bull call options spread
  • Buy a put bear options spread
  • Buy a Put butterfly with the guts at the target price
  • Buy a Condor options put spread

For Risky Range Bound Trades:

  • Sell Strangles (Undefined Risk)
  • Sell Straddle (Undefined Risk)
  • Sell an Iron Condor (Defined Risk)