EWJ - A massive options position has been initiated on the Japan exchange-traded fund this morning amid a slight 0.3% increase in shares to $10.13. The 150,000 contracts exchanged on the EWJ today are likely the work of one investor who was probably also responsible for another 100,000 contracts traded late yesterday afternoon. The trader appears to have sold 75,000 calls at the January 2011 12 strike for a premium of 35 cents apiece in order to partially finance the purchase of 75,000 puts at the March 2010 10 strike for 65 cents each. The net cost of the spread amounts to 30 cents per contract for a total cost of $2,250,000. Perhaps the investor established the trade to protect a long position in the underlying stock because he is concerned by prospects for price weakness through expiration in March. If this is the case, downside protection will kick in if the price of the fund slips 4% to breach the breakeven point at $9.70. Interestingly, another 100,000 contracts were exchanged at the same strike prices during yesterday’s trading session for a net cost of 28 cents apiece. Both the calls and puts traded to the middle of the market making it difficult to discern magnitude. However, we believe it is likely the investor has increased the size of the protective stance. This would leave the trader short 125,000 calls in the January 2011 contract and long 125,000 puts in the March contract. – iShares Japan Index Fund –
V - Investors piled into put options on the electronic payments network, pushing the global financial services brand onto our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner. Shares declined as much as 5.5% this morning to $69.68, but have since recovered slightly to stand 3% lower at $71.13. Traders bracing for further bearish momentum in the stock vied for near-term puts in the October contract. The most pessimistic individuals picked up 1,000 puts at the October 65 strike for 59 cents each. The October 67.5 strike had approximately 6,000 puts purchased for an average premium of 1.27 apiece. Finally, the now in-the-money October 72.5 strike had nearly 3,000 put options coveted by bearish traders for about 3.16 per contract. The rise in demand for put options fueled the 20% rise in option implied volatility experienced by Visa today. The stock’s implied volatility reading shifted up…
VLO - We can explain in part the activity in the September 20 strike call options, which is due to expire at the weekend. That’s straight forward. It’s now in the money following a 9% share price gain to $20.97. Investors have possibly built up a substantial short position at the start of August in the expectation that share would remain below $20 as they have since they collapsed on June 2. Selling short the calls means they stand to retain the premium if the stock price remains south of the border. We see little news to set off today’s enthusiasm for Valero, but the rally that has put the calls into the money has the potential to spark a significant amount of short covering. Options open interest here is around 33,000 while today’s volume is at around 29,000. Expiration Friday tomorrow should be fun. – Valero Energy Corp. –
NTRI - The weight management products and services firm, which offers portion-controlled pre-packaged meals that can apparently satisfy ex-NFL quarterback Dan Marino’s appetite, edged onto our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner this morning. Shares of NTRI have surged more than 6% today to $15.84, inspiring bullish options action in the October contract. It appears some 3,200 calls were purchased at the October 17.5 strike for an average premium of 25 cents per contract. Investors will begin to accumulate profits if shares of the weight management company rally 12% higher to breach the breakeven point at $17.75 by expiration next month. The rise in demand for options on NTRI helped fuel the 24% burst in option implied volatility on the stock from an intra-day low of 41% to a high of 51%. – NutriSystem Inc. –
EFA - Shares of the exchange traded fund representing stocks from Europe, Australasia, and the Far East have come off slightly today to stand less than 0.25% lower at $55.78. Perhaps fearing further bearish movement in the stock, investors coveted approximately 25,000 puts at the October 53 strike for an average premium of 73 cents apiece. Traders picking up the put options may currently hold long positions in the underlying stock meaning a 6% decline for shares of the EFA would be protected by put option exposure and that would kick in beneath the breakeven price of $52.27. – iShares MSCI EAFE Index ETF –
Today’s tickers: SPG, AMR, EEM, MDR, EFA, EWZ, IP & M
SPG Simon Property Group, Inc. – The real estate investment trust (REIT) has experienced a significant rally of more than 9% to $42.16 today and was added to the ‘conviction buy’ list at Goldman Sachs. SPG appeared on our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner after one investor established a long butterfly spread in the July contract. The purchase of 5,000 puts at the July 20 strike for 90 cents apiece (wing 1) and the purchase of 5,000 puts at the July 40 strike for 6.70 each (wing 2) were spread against the sale of 10,000 puts at the July 30 strike price for a premium of 2.80 per contract (body). The net cost of the transaction amounts to 2.00 (0.90 [wing 1] + 6.70 [wing 2] – (2.80*2 [body]) = 2.00). This investor will gain the maximum potential profit of 8.00 if shares settle at $30.00 by expiration. This strategy implies that he is hoping shares will fall from the current level through the breakeven point located at $38.00, at which point profits begin to amass to the downside. Should shares continue to rally rather than plummet, the most this trader can lose is the 2.00 he paid for the strategy. In order to reel in the full 8.00 of potential profits, shares would need to decline by 29% from the current price.
AMR AMR Corporation – American Airlines parent corporation, AMR, has experienced a huge share price rally as the stock jumped by more than 16% today to $4.90 after the company revealed narrower than expected first-quarter losses. AMR continues to struggle in this recessionary climate, but looks for travel demand to rise by the middle of the year. Option investors welcomed the better-than-expected results and were seen taking bullish stances on the company. At the May 5.0 strike price, 10,800 calls were purchased for an average premium of 70 cents per contract. One investor sold 6,850 puts at the May 4.0 strike price for 30 cents apiece in order to fund the purchase of 6,850 of the calls picked up at the May 5.0 strike. Finally, bullish investors looking to fly higher selected the May 6.0 strike where more than 3,400 calls were coveted for an average premium of 28 cents. Shares would need to continue on the up-and-up and gain another 22% in order…
PFE Pfizer Inc. – Shares of the pharmaceutical company have declined slightly by less than 1% to stand at $13.93. Pfizer edged onto our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner late in the afternoon after some interesting trades went through in the January 2011 contract. At the 15 strike one investor initiated a sold straddle by shedding 10,000 calls for a premium of 2.05 as well as 10,000 puts for 3.60 apiece. The gross premium enjoyed on the trade amounts to 5.65 and is retained in full if shares settle at $15 by expiration. This trader is expecting shares to remain mid-way between the 52-week low for Pfizer of $11.62 and the 52-week high at $20.32. In contrast, a bullish investor purchased 11,500 calls at the January 20 strike price for 80 cents per contract. This investor is hoping to see shares rally by 49% over the next 2 years to arrive at or above a breakeven share price of $20.80.
HPQ Hewlett-Packard Co. – Shares of the technology company have dipped slightly by less than 1% to $31.08. We observed a call-to-put ratio of about 3.0 which implies that call options traded three times for each put traded. However, the calls were nearly all sold. The November contract stood out with 8,400 calls sold at the 35 strike price for an average premium of 2.80. Another 11,000 calls were shed for 2.00 at the November 37.5 strike price. No open interest was previously recorded at either of these strikes, and therefore these calls were sold short by investors. Moving into the January 2010 contract, it appears that one individual sold 3,750 in-the-money calls at the 30 strike price for a premium of 5.50, while purchasing the same number of puts at the 32.5 strike for 5.80 apiece. This transaction leaves the trader with a net cost of 30 cents and a breakeven share price at which profits begin to amass on the downside at $32.20. Thus, the overall tapestry woven together by option trades depicted some species of large bear. One trade initiated in January ran counter to rest as one investor purchased 12,500 calls at the 32.5 strike price for a hefty premium of 4.35. Shares would need to rally by about 19% from the current price in order for the investor…
The S&P 500 got off to weak start and, after retracing a modest morning rally, spent most of the day in the shallow red with an intraday low of 0.63%. But in the last seven minutes of trading, the index recovered enough to a make a small gain of 0.14%. This is the fourth advance, the first was Monday's 1.60 surge, but the last three have ranged from 0.05% to 0.17% with today's close near the high of the miserly three-day series.
The index is now up 5.02% for 2012, which is 6.93% off the interim closing high.
From an intermediate perspective, the S&P 500 is 95.2% above the March 2009 closing low and 15.6% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.
Below are two charts of the index, with and without the 50 and 200-day moving averages.
And it was shaping up to be such a good year. According to the latest just released HSBC hedge fund performance update, increasingly more funds are starting to lose it, certainly for the month, but increasingly more for the year. How many LPs will be eager to keep on paying 2% management fees (forget performance) to funds who at best are long AAPL (at least 226 of them), and at worst have underperformed the S&P, for the second year in a row, by anywhere from 5 to 15%?
TIF - Tiffany & Co., Inc. – A surprise earnings miss and a reduced full-year profit and sales forecast from luxury jewelry retailer, Tiffany & Co., took some of the luster out of its shares today, with the stock trading down 8.5% at $56.55 as of 11:50 a.m. in New York. Options activity on Tiffany this morning suggests mixed sentiment on the st...
RealNetworks, Inc. (NASDAQ: RNWK) today announced that it has reached an agreement with the Washington State Attorney General over discontinued e-commerce practices. In accordance with the settlement agreement, RealNetworks has committed to:
Discontinuing the use of pre-checked boxes for purchases of RealNetworks subscription products; Spelling out more clearly the material terms of RealNetworks product offerings; Offering online cancellation of subscription offerings; Enhancing RealNetworks customer support guidelines regarding cancellation. Statement from Thomas Nielsen, President & CEO of RealNetworks:
"About two years ago, the Washington State Attorney General's Office contacted us regarding concerns they had with some of our e-commerce practices.
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...
First we'll go to the technicals. Back in mid April I had opined a 'bear flag' formation was being created. [Apr 17, 2012: Potential Bear Flag Forming] But the market being the difficult beast it is, head faked everyone and rather than a break down from said flag it first went UP and nearly touched yearly highs. This caused everyone to think the bear flag had failed…. only to lead to a horrid May in the market. Generally a bear flag will resolve relatively quickly but the longer...
Despite the fact that U.S. equities are well-positioned and well-supported to go up, once again it is the headlines out of Europe—especially Greece—that are scaring off investors. Some are saying that it is now likely (and even desirable) that Greece will default on all its sovereign debt, withdraw from the euro, and severely devalue its domestic currency (Drachma?). This will allow them to operate a balanced budget while pumping cash into growth initiatives, rather than suffer the ravages of Germany-mandated austerity.
Some say, so what? Greece makes up only about 2% of the Eurozone’s overall economy. Nevertheless, you might say that t...
Markets died and then rallied to flat again as European leaders “prepared contingencies” for a possible Grexit
Markets died hard and fast earlier today as major indexes registered as much as 1.5% of losses after news that Euro zone officials were unofficially “preparing contingencies” for a Greek exit from the Euro. Unofficial statements were not enough to keep markets down however, as major indexes rallied back to flat levels by the end of the day.
So the world continues to wait on Europe, as the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEACA:SPY) gained .05%, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSEARCA:...
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This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).
We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options.
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NEW: Ilene is available to chat with Members regarding topics presented in SWW, comments are found below each post.
Here is this week's test version of the latest newsletter. We apologize for some formatting issues that need to be worked out. Please tell us what you think.
Reminder: Pharmboy is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.
In this article, please revisit an article written two years ago titled, "The Calm Before the Storm." This article focused on the patent cliff that was looming in the pharmaceutical industry, that was later picked up by the New York Times and several other bloggers! Subsequent articles were written about big pharma company's revenue streams, and the pros and cons of of their later stage pipelines. Other articles have also attempted to identify smaller biotechs with the potential to reap big reward...
My last weekend update is dated from January 30 so after a long hiatus, here is an update of our virtual portfolio. Since the last update, we have closed the AA Money portfolio due to a lack of enthusiasm (and activity) and I have stopped tracking the FAS strangle as the low VIX makes it hard to get rewarded for the risk! But we have added a small $5KP virtual portfolio which does not use any margin.
FAS Money
We have had to recover from a big move up by FAS and a low VIX which keeps option prices low. But the portfolio has gaine about 10% since the last update.
Last update P&L - $5499.00
IWM Money
Not a lot of activity in this portfolio where the main focus is on the large IWM BCS. But the portfolio has grown over 20% since the last update.
Last update P&L - $1998.00
$5KP Portfolio
This is the virtual portfolio that replaced the AA Money portfolio. It does not use margin and we will keep holdings under $5K.
AAPL $50K P...
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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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...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(