Trade of the Day: TROW April 70 July 80 short call diagonal spread

The Trade

Today, a trader bought 7,000 April 70 calls at 1.3 and sold 7,000 July 80 calls at 0.4 for a debit of 0.90, or $630,000.

In this chart, courtesy of Livevol Pro, we can see that the trader has a small .5 point vol edge. The trader is long gamma and essentially short vol because of the higher vega in the back month.

Risk/Reward

As you can see from the risk/reward graph above, the short diagonal call spread is bullish. The maximum risk at expiration of the long call is $957,825, at an underlying stock price of 70. The max profit potential is $6,370,000. The upper break even price level is at 71.61. At this price level, the long calls get exercised, and the trader would buy back the short call.

The chart above shows the break even price level for this spread of 71.61 at expiration of the long call. The 52 week range for TROW includes a low of 42.81 and a high of 68.98. Therefore, this trader expects TROW underlying to make new 52-week highs before April expiration. Although earnings have not been announced, it appears possibly that earnings will be in the April expiration cycle.