With Google’s growth slowing down it looks like the rapid growth days of Google are over.  Google has been fairly range-bound lately and it appears to be right in the middle of a range here.  Looking at the chart below, a safe bet would be to sell an iron condor on GOOG around the 600 and 425 strikes (purple lines).  A riskier but potentially quicker-profit play would be the 550 and 460 range (orange lines).

Looking at September strikes for the orange range the 550/580 call spread sells for $2.95 and the 460/430 put spread sells for $4.35.  Stops would be at or near 460 or 550.  You maximum loss would be $22.70 if you don’t stop out.  Potential return on risk is 32%.  I chose $30 spreads somewhat arbitrarily: I try to have spread between 5-10% of the stock price for nice income without exposing too much risk of loss as well as limiting margin requirements so I don’t tie up so much cash for so long to hold these positions.

For the purple range we have to go farther out because those September spreads weren’t worth that much that far out of the money in the front month.  For some reason I couldn’t get pricing on October options so we’ll go out to December.  The 600/630 call spread sells for $4.40 and the 420/390 put spread sells for $4.10 for a total max income of $8.50.  Max risk is $21.5 if we don’t stop out and return on risk is 40%.