Trade Construction

AtriCure [ATRC]

AtriCure [ATRC] — Trade Construction

The memo issues no position verdict.

Vehicle: EQUITY — ladder step 1, and no other rung is available

Required disclosure

Item	Value
Chosen vehicle / ladder position	Equity, step 1
Trailing 252-day realised volatility	47.6%
Measured implied volatility	NOT MEASURABLE — no contracts exist
Implied − realised	INDETERMINATE (missing input, not a FAIL)
Quoted size at the strike	n/a — no chain

The 12-month-matched chain does not exist. An Alpaca options/contracts query for ATRC calls expiring between 2026-06-01 and 2027-09-30 returned zero contracts. This is the most extreme instance of the constructability failure the framework catalogues — worse than HCA's 18 contracts, GMED's 13 or CRDO's 78, because there is nothing to quote at all. Per criteria.md, "where no expiry is both liquid and long enough, the answer is equity"; and per the missing-input rule, the implied-minus-realised test returns INDETERMINATE, never FAIL.

Worth recording as a cross-name observation: on a single day, the same expiry window in the same sub-sector gave BSX 1,201×1,217 at the money, DXCM 22×42, and ATRC no chain whatsoever. Chain depth is name-specific and must be quoted at the strike on every name, every time.

Levels

	Level	Basis
Spot	$40.89	2026-07-29 close
12-month target	$42.00 (+2.7%)	3.30x EV/Sales on $645m NTM revenue = trailing-12-quarter own median, ~19th percentile of 8-year history
52-week range	$25.86 – $42.41	−3.6% from high
Own 8-year EV/S floor	2.40x → ~$32	−22%
Bear case	$32 (−22%) / $25 (−39%)	BoxX-NoAF misses its 30-day endpoint, H1 2027; p=30%

Sizing inputs for the book

Realised vol 47.6% — the highest of the three names. Inverse-vol sizing will size this smallest, which is the correct outcome given a binary trial readout inside the horizon.
Size constrains sizing, never admission. $2.08bn market cap. It is the smallest name here and should carry the smallest weight, but it is not excluded for size.
The honest shape of this trade: the 12-month target is flat to spot, so this is a catalyst position, not a valuation position. The re-rating from $27.70 to $40.89 already happened in May–July 2026. What is left is a dated binary (BoxX-NoAF, H1 2027) with a −22% to −39% downside and an undated option (LeAAPS) that cannot be sized because it cannot be dated. A book that wants the BoxX-NoAF outcome should say so explicitly rather than describe this as cheap.
Momentum is the strongest of the three — only −3.6% from the 52-week high — which for a MEASURED entry-timing input argues ATRC is the least likely of the three to be caught mid-de-rating. Contrast BSX at −57.4% from its high.
Correlation warning: ATRC overlaps the existing MedTech block (BSX, DXCM, SYK, EW, ISRG, GMED, PRCT, TMDX, COO). Its specific adjacency is BSX itself — both compete in atrial-fibrillation and left atrial appendage management (BSX WATCHMAN is transcatheter LAAC; ATRC AtriClip is surgical LAA management). A book long both BSX and ATRC is long the same clinical thesis twice, and CHAMPION/LeAAPS are both prophylactic-stroke-reduction bets in overlapping populations. This is the single most important cross-name observation in this run for portfolio construction.

Generated from each name's analysis.json. Figures are research output, not investment advice. Gaps are shown as “—” rather than filled: a missing input is recorded as indeterminate, never estimated.