ZAGG - Investment Thoughts

Note: Original article was an email amongst friends; contents on this email is as of 7/6/2011 and have been edited for grammar (to the extent possible) and calculations.


A friend of mine bought a few shares of ZAGG on July 6th.  My friend has been keeping his eye on the stock for quite a while now.  He notified me that he placed an order and it executed.  I did not have time available to perform an exhaustive due diligence research and deferred to his judgement since:

1. He's been watching a stock for a while now
2. He's made other investments and predictions that came true
3. I did not have much money to put in and the amount of effort required to perform due diligence would have not been worth the opportunity cost

Due to the first part of reason three, I decided to go into ZAGG with a Call Option instead of buying the stock itself.

I bought $16 Feb 2012 options for $1.44

There are a couple of ways to make money here:

• ZAGG increases to over $16 on or before Feb 2012
• ZAGG increases but not quite to $16 on or before Feb 2012

Example A:

Let's say ZAGG increases to $18.00 between now and Feb 2012; I can:

1. Execute the options (300 * $16 = $4800) and sell (300 * $18 = $5400), netting $600 and then subtracting the cost of the options of $432 for a profit of $168 before fees.  Not a lot of money in absolute terms but it is a 38.89% gain.

2. Sell the options for $2.50 (300 * $2.50 = $750) and then subtracting the cost of the options of $432 for a profit of $318 before fees.  This is decent money and equates to a 73.61% gain. Fuzzy math projection based on ZAGG options that are about $2.00 in the money (today's price is $12.50 and the options I looked/compared are the $11 options).

Example B:

Let's say ZAGG increases to $16.00 between now and Feb 2012; I can:

1. Execute the options (300 * $16 = $4800) and hold for a paper loss of $432 before fees (the cost of the options)

2. Execute the options (300 * $16 = $4800) and sell (300 * $16 = $4800) for a realized loss of $432 before fees (the cost of the options)

3. Let the options expire for a realized loss of $432 before fees (the cost of the options)

4. Sell the options for $1.90 (300 * $1.90 = $570) and then subtracting the cost of the options of $432 for a profit of $138.  Not a lot of money in absolute terms but it is still a 31.94% gain. Fuzzy math projection based on ZAGG options that are about $2.00 under the money (today's price is $12.50 and the options I looked/compared are the $14 options).

These 6 scenario should pretty much cover it.  There are a few ways to make money, let's see what happens.

Update 7/21/2011:

ZAGG $16 Feb 2012 are currently valued at 2.10 which means the options have increased by $0.66 which makes it a 45.83% gain before fees if I were to sell.  I am current watching and may sell at any time.

Yahoo Ticker for ZAGG $16 Feb 2012: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ZAGG120218C00016000

Update 7/25/2011:
I sold the ZAGG options for 2.35 today.  Total profit after fees is $245.60 and is a 55.10% gain for holding for 20 days or so.  I look forward to the next tip from the wise sage.