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A bearish opportunity I see in today’s market involves Wal-Mart Stores Inc (NYSE:WMT). Wal-Mart seems to be trying to fight back against Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), but that’s difficult to do. Personally, I tried to buy something online from Wal-Mart, and it was very complicated compared to Amazon, which was almost automatic. And, like many people, I’m not going to spend a lot of time trying to do something when I don’t have to. It’s just a lot easier to work with Amazon than with Wal-Mart at this point.

What’s more, WMT has a tendency to drop right at the beginning of the year. If you look at the chart, year after year that January drop usually occurs. Also, WMT really has had a huge gain this year, and I thought that it probably overdid it.

With all that in mind, here is my recommendation for a put debit spread on WMT:

Using a spread order, buy to open the WMT Jan. 19th $82.50 put and sell to open the WMT Jan. 19th $77.50 put for a net debit of about $0.90 to $0.95.

Note: There are several January expirations available for WMT options. Be sure you are opening the monthly options that expire on Friday, Jan. 19, 2018.

A debit spread is simply a way to lower the cost of buying options, as the option that you sell to open (short) helps offset the cost of the option that you buy to open. Therefore, this put debit spread is a way to lower the cost of buying bearish put options. Many brokers will require the use of margin and/or a set amount of reserved capital to execute a debit spread; contact your broker directly for specific requirements.

Ken Trester is editor of the popular Maximum Options program. Trester has been trading options since the first exchanges opened in 1973 with a winning streak that goes back to 1984 with money-doubling average annual profits since 1990.