Three Options Trades That Could Return Up To 841%

Many of you are probably options traders. Several of our analysts at TheStreet Pro are, and when times are risky, they will often suggest options as ways to manage risk, instead of buying stocks outright.

Now, it’s no secret that the team at TheStreet Pro believes 2026 to be a risky time for investors. We’ve discussed that several times here. And while the team isn’t ready to trade their bear claws in for bull horns, they’re starting to look for opportunities on the long side. Today’s article will focus on three different options trades that could return as much as 841%!

If you’re interested in more ideas like this, please join us at TheStreet Pro.

The Market Environment is Risky, Not Risk On

Nobody has been more vocal about the market’s risk levels than Doug Kass, the legendary hedge fund manager. As the war in Iran was preparing to either heat up or end on Tuesday, Dougie reiterated his worries about the market, which include:

1. Economic concerns, especially Slugflation. Weak growth combined with strong inflation will continue to harm the consumer.
2. Stock market valuations remain unsupportive of future gains. The Equity Risk Premium indicates stocks should underperform bonds.
3. Improvisational U.S. foreign policy is destabilizing our trade and political alliances.

These reasons are why he believes that the S&P 500 will end 2026 below where it started. Dougie believes it’ll be a volatile “two-way” market that has more to go on the downside.

However, he’s been deploying cash in stocks that he thinks are beaten down, including Fannie Mae (FNMA), Meta (META), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Disney (DIS).

Helene Meisler, who is a legend in the world of technical analysis, wrote on Monday that we didn’t “get sufficient panic at the lows, but unless/until we are back to an overbought condition, I expect the market to lean towards rallying. Even if we pull back in the next few days,” which she thinks is likely.

That’s the backdrop with which I’d like you to consider the following ideas. 2026 will continue to provide opportunities for traders, and it will wallop investors who don’t have a plan.

The Option for a Low Risk 12% Profit in a Big Pharma Name

One of Bret Jensen’s concerns is that inflation, exacerbated by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, remains high and that the Fed is unable to cut rates. In fact, Bret worries that the Fed might even have to hike rates. He’s cautious, to say the least.

Big Pharma, however, is one area that should be less impacted by surging energy and commodity prices. So, Bret took a look at AbbVie (ABBV). He likes what he sees and wrote about it on TheStreet Pro in “Clipping a 12% Coupon on a Big Pharma Name.”

ABBV offers nearly a dozen drugs with over $1b in annual sales. This includes names you might see on late-night cable TV, like Skyrizi and Rinvoq. The company also has an extensive pipeline with around 90 ongoing clinical programs.

While the PE is high, Bret expects consistent earnings growth from the company, which also offers a healthy dividend of 3.3%.

Shares are currently trading around $206, which is 20% below TipRanks’ Wall Street analyst consensus. In fact, all 23 analysts are bullish on the stock with none rating it a sell.

With this volatility, Bret doesn’t suggest just buying the stock and hoping for the best. No, Bret is an options trader at heart and thinks the best way to play ABBV today is via a covered call position.

In case you’re new to options, a covered call is where you buy the stock and sell a call against it. The call hedges some of the downside risk.

Specifically, Bret would buy the stock here and sell the November $200 calls, which were trading around $22 on Tuesday. This gives the investor protection, and profit, down to $184. As long as the stock remains above $206, the investor would pocket the $22 premium, plus three dividends of $1.73 per share.

It’s Time You Had an Option to Take a 300% Gain From UnitedHealth

Stephen “Sarge” Guilfoyle understands how and when to take risks. And this is a market where he’s trying to limit risk. He’s got plenty of cash on hand and has begun to deploy it, but only in names he’s comfortable with. More importantly, he’s maintaining a cash position for when things get cheaper.

This week, he found a low-risk opportunity in UnitedHealth (UNH). Sarge watches the White House closely, looking for ideas that come out of their policy decisions, and when the Trump administration’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services upped funding by $13 billion, he knew that there would be opportunity in the healthcare insurers. You can read all of the details in “UnitedHealth Presents Trade Idea with 300% Potential After $13B Medicare Boost.”

UNH is down around 10% this year, in large part because the originally proposed funding increase was just 0.09%. The $13 billion equates to a rise of 2.48%, which helped the insurers rally, with UNH gaining 9% on Tuesday.

Technically, Sarge likes that Tuesday’s jump helped the shares clear both their 21-day EMA and 50-day SMA, while taking aim at the 200-day SMA. The MACD is also improving, and the RSI is rising, though not overbought.

Like Bret, Sarge thinks this trade should be managed using options. He doesn’t want to buy shares. Rather, he thinks a bull call spread would be the way to go here.

One risk is that UNH reports earnings on April 21st. And that risk is central to Sarge’s strategy.

Sarge would buy one April 24th $315 Call for about $7.25 and sell one April 24th $325 Call for about $4.75. The net debit for this trade is $2.50 for a max potential profit of $7.50, or 300%. Each options contract is generally for 100 shares of stock; your maximum profit would be $750.

Since this trade expires after UNH reports earnings, that report will be key. If the earnings are great, you could take home $750 in profits. If they’re terrible, you could lose the $250 you paid. That’s a risk of $250 to make $750 or the possibility of a 3:1 gain. Not bad.

Netflix and Chill with Some Cold Hard Cash from an 841% Profit

Netflix (NFLX) has been in the news a lot lately, largely because it was competing against Paramount SkyDance (PSKY) and the Ellisons to get control of Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD). In the end, they won by losing – they may not have won control of WBD, but they didn’t overpay, like many are saying PSKY did. Shares have been rallying following the news.

Sarge has been watching the technicals on this one and thinks there’s a chance the stock could touch $123, following a breakout above a downward-trending channel. There are additional details in “How to Trade Netflix After Post Warner Bros Wall Street Price Target Increases.”

On Monday, there was a flurry of analyst activity that drove the shares higher, which was interesting because two of the three analysts simply reiterated a hold rating. The third, Goldman Sachs’ Eric Sheridan, upgraded the stock to a Buy and increased his price target to $120.

Other Wall Street analysts are similarly bullish. Among the 40 analysts following NFLX, 31 rate the stock a Buy. And the consensus price target is $114.61.

Netflix reports earnings next Thursday, and Sarge thinks this opens the door for another bullish options spread trade.

He suggests buying the NFLX April 17^th $106 call for around $1.15 and selling the NFLX April 17^th $114 call for around $0.30. That’s a net debit of $0.85. But if shares skyrocket on earnings, traders could rake in a profit of $7.15, or 841%. Again, that’s a pretty good risk-to-reward ratio.

Final Thoughts

The common theme among these three trades is risk management. The best traders win only about 50% of the time. The goal is that when they lose, they lose small, but when they win, they win big.

It’s hard to know if any of these trades will be winners. But they’ve all got the potential to win more than they lose.