I’ll have a new portfolio recommendation early next week, but in the meantime there’s an interesting option play on another portfolio pick that’s not doing well today. I’m not making options a formal part of this portfolio, but know that some of you are interested in option plays on portfolio stocks. In any case, it’s good to know that WDC’s business — which after all is the source of the income we’re counting on — is booming.    

That thing where you take market share, beat profit forecasts, raise the guidance bar and your stock still slides: it’s either the closest thing going today to a free lunch or a troubled sign of an exhausted bull market.

And if you’ve paid any attention at all to the market for the last few years, really, you already know the most probable answer.

It’s hard to find anyone saying anything really negative about the quarterly results Western Digital (WDC) posted last night.  I mean sure it pegged current quarter revenue at $5.1 billion against average analyst estimate of $5.21 billion. But in the context of an above-consensus profit guide for the current quarter as well as calendar 2017, that’s a quibble and an unworthy explanation for the stock’s 6.5% drop.

So, why? I don’t have a good answer, other than that the money that might have poured into the stock the second week of July on expectations of this beat has not left unsatisfied by the failure of the buying to snowball. And, honestly, most of the time straining to find the ONE TRUE REASON for a counter-intuitive daily move is a complete waste of time.

What matters here is that this is a fundamentally strong company currently firing on all cylinders, even as it wrestles with Toshiba in the courts over the fate of their lucrative flash memory joint venture.

I want to use cheap calls to buy this dip, but give them time to work as well amid the slowly rising risk of late-summer market weakness.

The January 2018 $75 calls were recently offered at $15.45, and look like the right play here.