[lell]

I really wanted to short this ticker during the IPO, but I was worried that I would have had to pay dividends that would go over my budget and I'd have to give up the positions before they were profitable, or that I'd accidently get futures instead of options (and potentially lose an arbitrary amount of money overnight). Does anyone know how one could have gone about shorting this in a way that made money with a budget of say $2500, (i.e., in a way that would have incurred a maximum loss of $2500) given what happened?

[dankohn1]

Buy $2500 worth of puts. You would have large upside and could lose at most what you paid or the put. Of course, The time decay works against you, but that wouldn't matter given the swings you're expecting.

[AndyIngram]

It would be highly unlikely for Groupon to issue a dividend, but shorting does have risks you need to educate yourself on if you are going to attempt it. I have a feeling options particularly put options would be priced highly at this time so a better choice could be to do a bearish call spread. http://www.optionsxpress.com/free_education/strategies/bear_...

[jmvoodoo]

Buy put options.