A Losing Trade on Daktronics Inc (DAKT)

Dear fellow options traders :

Noted that Daktronics Inc (ticker : DAKT), a company which specialized in electronic scoreboards & large electronic display systems, would be reporting earnings on 26 Aug 2008 before market opened. A look at the industry sector in which DAKT belonged to showed that there were hardly institutional money flowing in.


Also checked Briefing.com news and read that the sluggish US economy could curtail revenue expansion. I felt since that since the credit crisis was far from over, it could also affect the company's business. Thus, I bought an in-the-money (ITM) Sep 20 Put option for $215.00 on 25 Aug 2008 when DAKT was trading around $18.50. Why ITM? Because DAKT was not really a big mover for earnings in the past. Thus, I want to capture as much intrinsic value in my premium as possible if the stock price moved towards my anticipated direction after earnings.

On 26 Aug 2008 before market opened, DAKT reported Q1 earnings of $0.22 per share, $0.07 better than consensus of $0.17; revenues rose 33.3% year/year to $161.2 mln vs the $141.5 mln consensus. The company reiterated its financial guidance for fiscal 2009, expecting net sales to increase by more than 20% over fiscal 2008 and operating margin would range from 8.0-9.5%.

On 26 Aug 2008 when market opened, DAKT gapped up about +$2.50 to $20.50. I quickly closed my position when the Sep 20 Put option could still fetch $100.00. Unfortunately for me, DAKT's stock price did went down intra-day, especially after the conference call which commenced at 11.00pm EST, to close at $17.40 at the end of the day. But I've learned through the hard way to execute my stop loss while I still could get back some capital instead of hoping & praying that the stock would move towards my desired price level.



But something which amazed me was that on 25 Aug 2008 (eve of DAKT's earnings date) about 3.00pm EST, DAKT dropped like a rock for about -$0.70 from $18.75 to as low as $18.05 during that one hour before market closed. Made me wonder whether the panic selling was initiated so that they could be pick up cheaper before market close. Of course, on the following day, the position would make a handsome profit when the stock gapped up after earnings.


Yours Truly,

Tony Chai