It is curious to name a company that manufactures robots for surgery as intuitive.  Robots are programmed machines, and there is nothing intuitive about them - that is the domain of sentient beings.  At least one would think so, but looking at the stock behavior, I am not so sure.

The going was great for ISRG for a while.  Its robots for surgery, especially gynecological surgery, were selling very well.  While driving to work, I would see billboards showing happy surgeons next to the DaVinci machine (if only Leonardo Da Vinci could have had a say in the use of his name - among the most intelligent and intuitive of humans). 

Then, things started to go wrong.

1.  There were questions about the effectiveness of the machines, with claims that it actually did more harm than good, and was no better than an "ordinary" surgeon.

2.  It was expensive, and the Gillette model could ruin hospitals.

3.  There were claims that the robots actually help spread tumors in the abdomen (which is rubbish - any manipulation would do that, whether that be human or machine, but as they say in marketing, perception is reality) and the company took a hit.  The stock went from 500s to 350s.

Then, miraculously, ISRG announced that it had a new model that had been approved by the FDA.  The stock zoomed back into the 500s.  That's when I bought puts.  My reasoning was simple. 

1.  None of the concerns 1 -3 above had been negated.

2.  The new model was incompatible with the old model.  No exchangeable parts.  Now hospitals would have to fork over a whole bunch of money to buy the new robot and its replacement parts, while finding a dumpster big enough to take the old robot

3.  The billboard ads had vanished, replaced by happy couples ball room dancing in a retirement home. 

The stock is back in the 370s range.  I don't expect it to stay there long, and bet that another down leg is coming.. when the market crashes in the next few months.