Today’s tickers: JCP, OSUR & GS

JCP - J.C. Penney Co., Inc. – The department store operator’s shares had their worst percentage drop in more than two decades on Wednesday after the Company reported a loss for the first quarter, sales that fell more than expected and discontinued its quarterly dividend. The stock trades 17.3% lower this afternoon at $27.54. May expiry options changing hands on J.C. Penney this morning appear to be looking for a modest rebound off the lows by the end of the week. Call buyers snapped up more than 500 of the May $28 strike calls for an average premium of $1.00 each and purchased another 1,700 calls at the higher May $29 strike at an average premium of $0.49 apiece. The May $30 and $31 strike calls attracted buyers as well, with more than 3,000 and 1,600 contracts purchased at each, at premiums of $0.31 and $0.13 each, respectively. Meanwhile, strategists betting shares in JCP are at their lowest for the week sold May $27 and $28 strike put options, pocketing average premiums of $2.96 and $0.15 per contract on the trades. Put sellers walk away with the full amount of premium in hand as long as shares in J.C. Penney settle above $28.00 at expiration. Overall activity in JCP options is up sharply following earnings, with more than 138,000 lots in play versus the stock’s 90-day average options volume of 36,354 contracts.

OSUR - OraSure Technologies, Inc. – Shares in the medical equipment maker hoping to bring the first at-home HIV test to market jumped as much as 35.0% to a more than 5-year high of $12.28 today after a unanimous vote yesterday by an advisory panel was viewed favorably by investors. The FDA is expected to make a decision on the test in the next few months. Calls and puts are changing hands in roughly equal numbers this afternoon and overall volume is currently up above 2,200 contracts…

Click here for the full report.

To learn more, sign up for David’s free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends – “How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week.” Tell David PSW sent you. – Ilene

Commercial Real Estate is down 14% in China so far this year with Residential right behind, down 13.5% – all on 11.8% fewer sales than last year.  Foreign investment in Chinese properties has dropped 42.9% year to date.  China's main banks are not lending any money – due to lack of demand, not supply and 45% of Chinese companies predict a slowdown this year and next.  Brazil is right behind China with their own real estate market collapsing and the IMF is racing over to Australia to assess the damage done to their banks by the bursting property bubble and EU property values are also off 20% from their 2007 peaks – even in London and Frankfurt – which were supposed to be "immune" from this nonsense.  

Good – let's get it all out in the open finally!  

Italian Banks are in turmoil and their Government is considering using troops to protect the Banksters after one was shot last week.  There is a run on the Greek Banks with almost $900M withdrawn this month and virtually no liquidity should people want more.  Meanwhile, The Institute of International Finance has estimated that the global cost of a Greek exit could hit $1,300,000,000,000. When Argentina defaulted in 2001, foreign debtors lost around 70% of their investments.  Is $1.3Tn finally a number that matters?  

That's right folks, the Global situation is a complete and utter disaster – which is why we went long on the Russell Futures (/TF) at 775 and Oil Futures (/CL) at $92.50 in Member Chat this morning.  Where the Hell else are you going to put your money if not in US Equities?  That was my conclusion at 11:54 in yesterday's Chat, when I said to Members:  

Nice pop off the EU close – still seems like people are abandoning the sinking ship of state over there and money has nowhere to go but US equities (but TBills and Dollars are getting some love too).  With gold, silver, oil and copper all looking weak – where the hell are people supposed to put money?

We noted that there were 16 stocks that were hitting their 2009 panic lows which we were very comfortable moving into in what we're calling our…