A stock has gone down a lot very rapidly and I believe it will now go up slowly.

if you bought for the long term, wait it out if the financials are intact. If not then get out now.

That would depend on you. It all depends on how much risk you are willing to take. I would say it also depends on how old you are. Usually the older a person is the less risk they are willing to take simply because they don't have the time to make up the loss if they're wrong. If you're young then you should be able to take more risk. The way to make money is to buy low and sell high. So, if the risk is in line with you, then I would say investing in that stock would be ok. If the risk is not in line with you, then don't do it. Good Luck!

If the market is looking bullish for the rest of the year (which it is) then go by the option set to expire in the next couple of months, it should really pay off. Don't worry about the volatility!

This is fairly straight forward:If you expect volatility to decrease you have to sell options. If you expect the underlying to increase, you have to go long so sell put options.If you have a strong conviction about direction you should sell in the money options, which gives you good directional opportunity. If you believe the move happens quick go for short term options.If it is more the volatility you are playing, the choice of option has less impact than the fact that you sold volatility (by selling an option). At-the-money or in-the-money options are better and longer term gives also better impact of volatility decrease.Since you say you believe the stock will go up slowly, selling probably a 3 month put-option about 5%-10% in-the money should do the trick for your expectations.Keep in mind that the more an option is in-the-money, the more margin you need to keep, so the less options you can sell. Closer to 5% in-the-money is best

The option strategy would be to go long of course - over which time period is up to you but it really doens't sound like you should be getting into options at all. It's a bit like a learner driver saying "this Nascar thing can't be so difficult, can it?"Whether you write uncovered options or simply buy existing ones is going to depend on the capital that you have available to risk, your current stock holding if any and your experience.

A bullish vertical spread (either call or put) will remove some of the volatility crunch and allow for movement up.