Shares of Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) hit a new 52-week high intraday Monday, after analysts at Citigroup reiterated their buy rating on the stock.  For investors looking to add downside protection now, here's a way to get paid to do so.

Hedging With An Optimal Collar

Below is the optimal collar*, as of Monday's close, to hedge 1000 shares of MU against a >17% drop between today and March 21st, for an investor willing to cap his potential upside at 19% over the same time frame. Before we look at it, let me anticipate a question:

Why Would I Want To Cap My Upside At 19% For 6 Months?

Well, you might not. In which case, you could pay to hedge, or just take your chances and hope the stock doesn't suffer a significant correction over next six months. On the other hand, you might be willing to cap your upside here in return for getting paid to add downside protection, considering that you're up about 215% if you've held this stock for the last 52 weeks. In that case, here's that optimal collar:

As you can see at the bottom of the screen capture below, the net cost of this optimal collar was negative, meaning you would have gotten paid to hedge in this case.

Note that, to be conservative, Portfolio Armor calculated the cost of this hedge by using the bid price of the call leg and the ask price of the put leg. In practice, you can often sell calls for more (at some price between the bid and ask) and buy puts for less (again, at some price between the bid and ask), so, in actuality, an investor opening the optimal collar above would likely have netted more than $350 to do so.

Possibly More Protection Than Promised