Demand for Blue Coat Systems Call Options Pops
by Phil - April 15th, 2011 4:13 pm
Today’s tickers: BCSI, BHP, KFT & MOBI
BCSI - Blue Coat Systems, Inc. – Speculation and unconfirmed rumors that Cisco may be interested in acquiring rival Blue Coat Systems sent shares in Sunnyvale, CA-based Blue Coat up as much as 8.0% this afternoon to an intraday high of $28.85. Investors flocked to the May contract to buy out-of-the-money call options on the stock in case the there’s any element of truth driving the takeover chatter, or simply to benefit from rising call premiums that result from the higher implied volatility and share price that’s likely to accompany continued speculation. Options traders exchanged more than 4,500 calls at the May $29 strike on open previously existing open interest of just 150 contracts. It looks like bulls purchased the majority of the calls for an average premium of $0.71 apiece. Call buyers stand prepared to profit in the event that Blue Coat’s shares rally another 3.0% to surpass the average breakeven price on the upside at $29.71 by May expiration. Investors purchased another 1,000 call options up at the May $30 strike, paying an average premium of $0.57 a-pop. Higher-strike call buyers make money if shares in Blue Coat Systems increase 6.0% over today’s high of $28.85 to exceed the average breakeven share price of $30.57 in the time remaining to expiration. Options implied volatility on the stock jumped 21.8% to 50.04% on Friday afternoon, and continues to climb in the final hours of the trading week.
BHP - BHP Billiton Limited – Put players initiated diverse bearish options strategies on the natural resources company today, with shares in BHP Billiton slipping 0.65% to $99.79 on speculation China may do more to combat the faster-than-expected rise in inflation. The bulk of volume generated in BHP’s options appears to be the work of one…
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DiggTurn Up Tuesday – POT Gets Really High
by Phil - August 17th, 2010 8:29 am
BHP offered to pay $38.4Bn for POT this morning.
Is BHP high or is this market seriously undervalued? Well, for one thing, POT turned them down saying the offer ($130/share – CASH) "substantially undervalues PotashCorp and fails to reflect both the value of our premier position in a strategically vital industry and our unparalleled future growth prospects." CEO Dallas Howe continues: "We believe it is critical for our shareholders to be aware of this aggressive attempt to acquire their company for significantly less than its intrinsic value. The fertilizer industry is emerging from the recent global economic downturn, and we feel strongly that PotashCorp shareholders should benefit from the current and potential value of the Company. We believe the BHP Billiton proposal is an opportunistic effort to transfer that value to its own shareholders."
Considering POT closed at $112 yesterday, so a 16% pop in the offer but POT was at $85 at the beginning of July and hasn’t been over $130 since the 2008 crash, although they did top out at $239.35 so I suppose a very patient investor could imagine that within 5 years, $200 is not an unreasonable goal. Still, is that enough reason to turn down $130 of cash now, with the proverbial 1.3 birds in the hand being worth 2 in the bush?
Back on July 12th (when POT was trading at $92.81 and the Dow was at 10,200) my premise for looking for S&P 1,100 and Dow 10,700 was that Corporate America’s Non-Financial companies were sitting on a $2Tn pile of cash and, as an old M&A consultant, it seemed pretty obvious to me what was going to happen to that money.
We’ve had plenty of M&A activity recently. In fact, M&A activity in the first half of 2010 saw 5,345 deals (up 49% from last year), the highest level since 2007, indicating that companies are INCREASING their confidence in the economy despite the BS spin you are getting from politicos who NEED you to believe things are worse than they seem and the MSM, who push fear like heroin to create a NEED for their product.
POT’s board of directors is very confident that they don’t NEED BHP’s money and BHP may NEED POT badly enough to want to sweeten the deal – frankly I’m surprised at the timing because I would have waited for another dip and the fact that BHP (one of the World’s largest resource companies with $50Bn in annual sales)…
Mega Earnings Monday – 1,000 Reports This Week!
by Phil - April 26th, 2010 8:21 am
What a crazy week this is going to be!
Pre-Market we’re hearing from BLK, CAT (are we building stuff?), EXP, HTZ, HUM, LO, TUES and TZOO and later we will hear from BSX, CHH, OLN, RSH, RCII, TXN (major) and my "friendbuddypal" Cramer’s TSCM (if they are not delayed). Revenues at The Street have crept back up this year in a recovery that pretty much mirrors the market. The company does pay a nice 2.6% dividend, which works out to a nice $200,000 bonus on Jimmy’s 2.1M shares (6.7% of the company) so you know that bonus will be a priority for the company. Cramer was BUYBUYBUYing his own stock at $2.41 in January but sadly they have no options to hedge… They might make a nice pick-up after earnings if they disappoint and head back to $3 or less.
I’m full of useful information on hundreds of stocks right now because I’ve been researching our new Buy List but I’m not pleased with what I’ve been seeing so far and this week’s tidal wave of earnings, with 1,000 companies reporting means we’re in no hurry to dip our toes in the water. I told Members this morning I should probably be working on a Sell List, as it’s much easier to find companies I want to short than ones I want to buy. Even in the Weekly Wrap-Up, we featured a 1,900% downside hedge on the Russell to offset the 566% plays and other bullish plays we’ve begun to reluctantly take, just so we don’t feel too silly in this runaway market.
If you have never watched Jim Cramer discussing the sleazy, manipulative ways he used to game the markets – you really must take 10 minutes and watch this video, where Jim explains how any immoral bastard with $10M can yank the entire futures market around at will. He prefaces one of his favorite strategies with "this is blatantly illegal but.. I think it’s really important… these are things you MUST do on a day like today and if you are not doing it, maybe you shouldn’t be in the game." Are you playing the game or are you being played?
The biggest game ever played may be unwinding as we speak. Bloomberg reports that foreign-exchange profits from carry trades are disappearing as differences in central bank interest rates fail to increase fast enough to compensate for swings in…
Friday Market Follies – Up, Up and Away?
by Phil - September 11th, 2009 8:27 am
And away we go!
We have finally broken through all of our breakout levels and no one is more surprised than I am to see this coming without a pullback (perhaps David Fry – see chart on right). We will, of course, remain cautious through the weekend but we’re already preparing to throw caution to the wind (sort of) as I’ve posted a primer for our Buy/Write Strategy, so we can start picking up the stocks we want at roughly 15-20% discounts. This is why we can afford to be patient as we wait for our breakout levels – WE DON’T MISS ANYTHING! At PSW, we can STILL buy BAC for $14.41 (16% off) and C for $3.43 (27% off) and PARD for $3.79 (51% off) and now that we have made our tops, we feel a lot more comfortable working in at those prices than we would have when the market was 20% lower in early July.
Hopefully that floor holds (Dow 8,000). We’re looking good so far as our breakout levels have been Dow 9,600, S&P 1,030, Nasdaq 2,038, NYSE 6,700 and Russell 577 and now they form a floor we will be able to watch so we’ll know when to be worried that the rally is running out of steam.
We are also well-protected with our disaster hedges from the Aug 24th post and, if you don’t have any – it’s still a good idea to get some (and cheaper now too!). Only 2 33% (off the top) levels remain and that’s 1,056 on the S&P and 6,959 on the NYSE and we will be officially raising our mid-point from Dow 8,650 to 9,500 if we can take those out and hold them for a day or two, which will make 9,000 our new expected floor on the Dow and that means we should be buying here! There’s no point in having watch levels if we don’t act on them.
The dollar continues to fall and that’s supporting oil and gold but not the Nikkei, who fell 100 points off their open and finished down .666% for the day as the dollar failed to hold 91 Yen against the world’s mightiest currency. Even a 50-point "stick save" into the Nikkei close couldn’t paint a positive close for the day. A 100-point boost into the close was enough to give the Hang Seng a 91 point gain on the day, capping off a 700-point week (3.5%) and exactly 10%…
Friday Morning – Goldman’s Global Goose!
by Phil - August 21st, 2009 8:27 am
We have talked about manipulation all week but this takes the cake!
The Nikkei was plunging 250 points this morning as the dollar collapsed (in a move to boost commodities and the US markets – more on that later) below the critical 94 Yen mark and, EXACTLY AT THE MOMENT the Nikkei crossed the critical 10,200 line we’ve been watching all week (11 am, just as they were closing for lunch), Kathy Matsui, chief equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, jumped on the phone and literally stopped the presses by calling for a 73% increase in Japan’s corporate profits next year buoyed by cost cuts, a weaker yen and rising demand. “People are going to be surprised at how sharp the recovery will be,” Matsui said in a phone interview.
Goldman’s estimates equate to 48.9 yen in earnings per share for the Topix in the financial year ending March 2011, placing the benchmark at 19.4 times estimated earnings. The brokerage also reversed its forecast among all industries to a 23.3 percent increase in pretax profits this year from a 15 percent decline. “Our forecasts for both the March 2010 and March 2011 financial years exceed consensus estimates largely due to our expectations of stronger global growth, continued restructuring benefits, and a weaker yen,” Matsui wrote in a report titled “Back in Black.”
Note that Ms. Matsui is the only analyst who sees this Asian miracle occurring this year as Global emerging-market equity funds posted their biggest weekly outflows of 2009 as investors pulled money out of China on concern banks expanded credit too rapidly, EPFR Global said. Funds that invest in emerging-market stocks worldwide lost $946 million, while China funds had their worst week since the first quarter of 2008, according to the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based research company. Investors pulled $810 million from Asia excluding-Japan funds, the most in 24 weeks, while Latin America and Europe, Middle East and Africa funds had “modest inflows,” said EPFR, which tracks funds with $10 trillion worldwide.
This amazing 200% reversal of forecast timed at 10pm on option expiration eve East Coast time, took the S&P futures from 996 all the way back to 1,010 and took the Dow futures from 9,250 (down 100 from Thursday’s close) all the way to 9,375. The Nikkei managed a "stick save" and finished the day down "just" 1.4% at 10,250 and the Hang Seng was able to rally back 300 points…
Monday Market Meltdown – Down Goes Copper!
by Phil - June 15th, 2009 8:06 am
It wasn’t Ali who shocked the World knocking Joe Frazier down it was George Foreman.
In 1973 the undefeated Frazier had beat the unbeatable Muhammad Ali (everyone’s favorite Muslim) to take the title and had defended it twice in 1972 before being knocked out in just 2 rounds by Foreman (everyone’s favorite grill salesman). Frazier had 29 consecutive victories up to that point and seemed unstoppable but then, suddenly… unexpectedly… he was stopped. Giving Frazier huge credit he was knocked down 6 times before they stopped the fight but it was a beating nonetheless.
This morning copper has been knocked down and is leading commodities lower after coming off an earlier knockdown at $200 and another at $150 - having started its run way down at $125 back in December. Of course, after a 100% run to almost $250 we can certainly forgive them a 20% pullback to $225 per our 5% rule and we’re not going to call the fight just yet but Oil is also pulling back off a 100% run while gold has only moved 17.5% over the same time period, already double-topping at $1,007 and $989 in February and May respectively.
As recently as May 26th, we had looked to copper as a bullish sign as they broke out over $200 but oil was only $60 at the time. Since then, both copper and oil have rocketed 25% to the point at which I warned of hyperinflation in a special post last Thursday. Let’s take this move VERY seriously as it took days after I started worrying about copper for the commodity to finally drop and my observation on May 12th was that investors had finally realized that "China buying copper to stack it up in warehouses wasn’t a buying premise." That gave us a great week last options expirations as we took bearish stances on Agriculture, Oil and Metals right into Monday’s mega-pump as the Dow then gave up 600 points between that Monday’s post, where I called for a meltdown, and that expiration day Friday when I said: "We are already on vacation, having followed our plan to cash out at the bottom yesterday anticipating some short covering today that would take up the markets."
That gave us a very happy holiday weekend and we did get our rally on light volume during the next, short week…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
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