To say 2011 has been a bad year for Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) is an understatement, to say the least. And this week’s global service outage, which is taking place at the same time as a successful iPhone 4G launch, is another black eye for the BlackBerry maker.

The momentum tech name of days past has been a thorn in the side for many investors lacking the foresight to bail before the inexorable slide commenced at the beginning of the year.  However, this may be setting up savvy investors for a fresh new start with this sagging stock.

Despite the overall downtrend, there have been a few isolated opportunities to profit from RIMM on the long side, such as the run from $21 to $33 in August. Don’t look now, but the BlackBerry maker is actually setting up for a potential breakout to the upside.

From a price perspective, it is basing nicely against a key resistance level around $24.75 and has an unfilled gap providing a $4 price void overhead. Trading volume has also been rising on the last few upswings, showing increased participation from the bulls over the past few weeks.

On a confirmed break of $24.75, traders looking for bullish exposure on RIMM may consider the purchase of a November call option or call spread to exploit a continued rise in the stock.  Aggressive traders could purchase the RIMM Nov 25 Call outright.  Conservative traders could purchase the 25-29 call spread by buying to open the RIMM Nov 25 Call and selling to open the RIMM Nov 29 Call at the same time.  With a current value of $1.37, the call spread has $137 of risk and $263 of potential reward.

The long term trend on RIMM remains down, so I would treat this as a short-term tactical play.

Source:  MachTrader

At the time of this writing, Tyler Craig had no positions on RIMM.