How to buy a major Dow component, at a discount

UnitedHealth

is one of the largest U.S. companies in one of the largest sectors that pays a respectable dividend. Despite this, I wouldn’t buy the stock outright.

Instead, I favor an options strategy that pays me to get long at a discount. Specifically, I like selling the June $360 puts at $10 (or better) rather than purchasing the stock at the moment for several reasons.

The market is stretched:

First, equity valuations generally are quite stretched. Forward looking S&P 500 price-to-earnings multiples may not set off alarm bells at roughly 21x, but measures which seek to view valuations through business cycles, such as the Schiller CAPE (cyclically adjusted pe) ratio are nearing historical highs. JP Morgan’s long-term valuation studies show that when multiples are elevated, subsequent 5–10‑year returns tend to be lower than average. If that’s true, investors may want to consider strategies that generate “standstill returns”.