Last Monday I recommended purchasing the November $25 put option on Symantec Corp. (SYMC) as a speculation on the market’s reaction to its quarterly earnings report due to be released later in the week. At that time SYMC was trading slightly above $25 with a mildy positive trend. But my IDEAL stock rating system flagged it as at-risk of getting slammed if any aspect of that report was the least bit disappointing. On the same day the company also announced the resignation of its longtime CFO.

Both announcements were strongly influenced by Symantec’s recent acquisition of rival Blue Cost, which meant there was one CFO too many so one had to go. More importantly, the immediate impact of merging the two company’s financial statements was a net loss in GAAP earnings-per-share despite higher top line revenue growth.

At the moment the stock market doesn’t like these kinds of deals, since the current focus is on growing profitability. In the long run this transaction may turn out to be a great thing for Symantec’s long term survival, but with the stock market no longer in growth mode those potential future benefits are being heavily discounted.

The result was a quick 8% drop in SYMC’s share price the day after these announcements were made, from its closing price of $25.45 on Thursday to $23.49 on Friday. And since the put option I recommended has a strike price of $25, it is now “in the money” and worth about 50% more than the $0.70 limit price we paid for it just one week ago.

For that reason, I am closing out this position today – before tomorrow’s presidential election – to book that gain in case we get a “relief rally” later this week if Wall Street gets the Clinton victory it is clearly hoping for. And given yesterday’s announcement by FBI Director James Comey that the newest e-mail investigation has also yielded no call to action, it appears more likely that Clinton will come away with a victory.

Sell the SYMC November 11 $25 put option (161111P00025000) for $1.05 or more to close out this position.