GameStop Bear Positions For Post-Earnings Pullback
by Option Review - November 15th, 2011 12:48 pm
Today’s tickers: GME, FTR, SUN & HNZ
GME - GameStop Corp. – The remainder of the trading week is unlikely to be all fun-and-games for shareholders in GameStop Corp., according to bearish trading in its put options this morning. Protective or perhaps outright bearish positioning in GME options arrives just in time for the world’s largest video game retailer’s third-quarter earnings report due out ahead of the opening bell on Thursday. It looks like the buyer of a debit put spread in the front month is prepared for shares in GME to head lower following the release. Shares in the world’s largest video game retailer are currently down 3.0% to stand at $23.90 as of 11:50 AM in New York. The investor responsible for most of the volume in GameStop Corp. options in the first half of the trading session on Tuesday purchased a 1,000-lot Nov. $23/$24 put spread for a net premium of $0.30 per contract. The trader makes money if shares in GME settle below the effective breakeven price of $23.70 at expiration this week. Maximum potential profits of $0.70 per contract are available to the put player in the event that shares in the video game retailer drop 3.75% from the current price of $23.90 to settle below $23.00 at expiration.
FTR - Frontier Communications Corp. – Options traders appear to be bulking up on bearish positions in Frontier Communications for the second consecutive day this week, with shares in the Stamford, Connecticut-based company sliding 2.3% lower to $5.43 by 11:15 AM ET on Tuesday. The stock also fell 2.3% on Monday to close at $5.57. Investors positioning for the stock to continue to drop within the next few months are accumulating sizable positions in the closest-to-the-money strike put available in the February contract. It looks like one investor snapped up more than 4,500 puts at the Feb. 2012 $5.0 strike for a premium of $0.35 each in the first 30 minutes of the trading session. The put buyer may profit at expiration next year if shares in Frontier fall 14.4% to breach the effective breakeven point on the downside at $4.65. Bearish trading in the same Feb. 2012 $5.0 strike put occurred in the final 10 minutes of trading on Monday, as well. It appears one investor purchased a block of 5,000 of the put options for a premium of $0.30 apiece yesterday. Both positions, which may or may not…
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DiggBulls Scoop Up Sprint Nextel Corp. Calls
by Option Review - March 10th, 2011 4:33 pm
Today’s tickers: S, FTR, JTX & SBUX
S - Sprint Nextel Corp. – Medium-term bullish positioning is building up in Sprint Nextel Corp. options today with shares in the name trading 3.00% higher on the session at $4.84 as of 12:20pm in New York. Investors expecting shares in the provider of various communications products and services to extend gains through May expiration engaged in plain-vanilla call buying, purchasing the options out-right to position for shares to potentially reach a new 52-week high in the next couple of months. Volume is heaviest at the May $6.0 strike where 20,750 calls have changed hands versus previously existing open interest of 7,482 contracts. It looks like roughly 18,000 of the calls were picked up at a premium of $0.08 each. Call buyers make money if Sprint’s shares jump 25.6% over the current price of $4.84 to surpass the effective breakeven price of $6.08 by expiration day in May. Sprint Nextel Corp. is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings before the market opens for trading on April 28, 2011.
FTR - Frontier Communications Corp. – Put volume on the communications company jumped today after sizable trades were initiated in the May contract. It looks like investors responsible for the put activity may be purchasing the contracts to brace for bearish movement in the price of the underlying stock. Shares in Frontier Communications Corp. are currently down 0.90% to stand at $8.00 as of 12:30pm. The selection of the May contract put options could be coincident with the firm’s first-quarter earnings report, which is scheduled for release before the opening bell on May 5, 2011. One trader appears to have purchased some 3,000 puts at the May $8.0 strike for a premium of $0.40 each. The investor starts to make money on the put-acquisition if shares in FTR decline 5.0% from the current price of $8.00 to breach the effective breakeven point at $7.60 by May expiration day. Volume is greatest, however, at the lower May $7.0 strike where 15,000 put options…
Trade War Tuesday – China, Japan and US at Odds
by Phil - September 28th, 2010 8:20 am
War does not determine who is right, only who is left. – Bertrand Russell
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, Japan and China are at it again. We discussed the "fishing’ incident last week and Japan has released the Chinese captain who rammed one of their Coast Guard vessels. Now shippers in several Chinese cities said customs officers have stepped up spot inspections of goods being loaded onto ships bound for Japan and being imported from the country. Traders said officers in some cases were taking the highly unusual step of looking at every item in a container instead of following normal practice of examining a small sample. The heavy searches, which can add costly delays to shipments. For it’s part, Tokyo wants China to pay restitution and now China’s navy is moving into disputed waters.
China is fighting a trade war on two fronts as they are threatening to retaliate against US businesses operating in China if Congress passes legislation intended to force a revaluation of the Yuan. The House of Representatives is set to consider legislation this week that would let companies petition for higher duties on imports from China to compensate for the effects of a weak yuan. Forcing China to raise the value of its currency may create 500,000 jobs in the U.S., most in manufacturing at above-average wages, according to C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. China’s currency, which is undervalued by as much as 25 percent, is the most important trade issue facing the U.S., he said in testimony last week.
So we are pressuring China to strengthen their currency, which would make our currency relatively weaker. One would think the dollar couldn’t get much weaker than it is now (see Dave Fry’s chart). We’ve been shorting GLD (buying GLL) and TLT, expecting a dollar bounce off these levels but if we fail here – we’re going to have one very ugly chart.
Of course a 10% drop on the dollar could be just the ticket for the markets – since our stocks are priced in dollars. That makes them look pretty good compared to cash that’s sitting on the sidelines (or tied up in notes) that’s lost over 10% of it’s buying power since June.
That’s right, JUNE! As people who travel to…
Bullish Players Gorge on Apple Calls
by Option Review - June 22nd, 2010 4:06 pm
Today’s tickers: AAPL, APC, GE, CCL, EMC, RAH, EEM, WAG, FTR, OMX & JPM
AAPL – Apple, Inc. – Bulls sank their teeth into Apple call options today in order to position for continued appreciation in the price of the underlying through August expiration. The iPhone maker’s shares increased as much as 2.10% during the trading session to secure an intraday high of $275.97 perhaps on news the firm sold 3 million iPads in the first 80 days since the product was introduced to the U.S. marketplace. Apple optimists expecting shares to surpass yesterday’s new 52-week high of $279.01 purchased 1,100 calls at the August $280 strike for a hefty premium of $14.64 apiece. Investors long the calls are positioned to profit if Apple’s shares rally 6.75% over today’s intraday high of $275.97 to trade above the average breakeven point at $294.64 by August expiration. Bulls anticipating more significant share price gains by August expiration purchased approximately 2,500 calls at the higher August $290 strike for an average premium of $9.70 each. Investors long the August $290 strike contracts make money if the iPod maker’s shares surge 8.6% to exceed the average breakeven price of $299.70 by expiration day. Finally, uber-bulls bought 2,000 calls at the higher August $300 strike for an average premium of $7.38 a-pop. Traders holding the August $300 strike calls stand ready to accumulate profits as long as Apple’s shares jump 11.4% to trade above the average breakeven point on the calls at $307.38 by expiration day in August. Nearly 200,000 option contracts changed hands on Apple, Inc. by 3:00 pm (ET), with call options trading 1.35 times to each single put option in play.
APC – Anadarko Petroleum Corp. – Shares of the independent oil and gas exploration and production company which holds a 25% stake in BP’s leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico dropped 4.35% late in the session to stand at $41.56 as of 3:15 pm (ET). Despite the decline in the price of the underlying today one optimistic option strategist positioned himself to one day bask in the light at the end of the tunnel by enacting a bullish debit call spread in the November contract. APC’s shares plunged 53.4% from a high of $74.14 on April 20 – the day the leak was triggered – down to a 52-week low of $34.54 on June 9, 2010. Since bottoming out on…
Wrong Way Weekly Wrap-Up
by Phil - March 6th, 2010 8:34 am
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This whole week did not feel right to me.
We were too bearish as I had expected a bogus commodity rally in last weekend’s wrap-up but I didn’t expect it to persist for a week, even as the dollar held it’s ground above 80, a 10% pullback off the top, when oil was $40, copper was $1.50 and gold was $850. Now oil is $80 (up 100%), copper is $3.35 (up 123%) and gold is $1,135 (up 33%). Let’s say gold is a true indicator of dollar weakness – that means that only 33% of oil and copper’s move up can be attributed to the 10% drop in the dollar (not that even that makes sense but we’ll give it to them). Can the rest be attributed to demand?
Certainly not with copper. Global copper consumption was down 1.9% in 2009 and Q1 2010 is lower than any quarter since Q1 2009 and even Barclays’ very aggressive targets for China growth only bring global demand up 2.5% this year – whch would just about bring us back to 2007 levels of consumption. That, of course, also assumes a rebound in housing construction – something we are not seeing at the moment. Also, China spent $700Bn last year stimulating their economy and one of the ways they did this was to stockpile copper. As you can see from the chart – that too appears to be winding down and even Goldman Sachs has abandoned the bullish side of copper at this point.
Oil is just as silly. According to the EIA, global oil consumption is not expected to return to 2007 levels until late 2011 – and that is with some very rosey estimates of a global econonomic recovery – exactly the type of thing that can be derailed by high oil prices! Mighty China’s consumption is projected to go from 8.66Mbd this year to 9.13Mbd in 2011, a 500,000 barrel increase. Last week, the US had a build in inventories of 4Mb – we just send those over to China and everyone is happy! I’ve already had my say on oil demand this this weekend, so let’s just move on…
Let’s just say I’m a little skeptical about any market moves that are lead by commodity pushers at this very early stage in a recovery. Prices are not going up based on demand but…
Weekend Wipe-Out, the Second Wave!
by Phil - January 29th, 2010 5:57 pm
Another week another 100 points lower.
Yep, that’s all it was, we lost all of 100 points more than last week, when we fell from 10,725 to 10,172 (553 points) and this week we dropped from Friday’s Dow close of 10,172 all the way down to 10,067 yet you would think the world had come to an end to hear the media and the traders freaking out. I’m not going to try to explain it, I can’t. Maybe it’s because going into last week we were very bearish but, starting on the 22nd, we let ourselves finally get a little more bullish AND THE MARKET BETRAYED US!
How could the market not zoom right back up? It always zooms right back up, doesn’t it? As I said a week ago Friday: "Boy, when sentiment shifts – it REALLY shifts!" My closing comment on Friday the 22nd was "Back to cash but leaving disaster hedges, which are looking great now as this is shaping up to be some disaster" and our weekend "Global Chart Review" showed us to be at some very key inflection points, letting us go well prepared into this week:
Manic Monday Market Movement
My Jets lost on Sunday so I was not in the best of moods on Monday. My outlook that morning was: "We still have our disaster hedges in case things get worse but, on the whole, we’re expecting a 1% bounce in the very least off our 5% lines (anything less will be a bad sign)." We were pretty much at the 5% rule on Friday’s close so we focused on the bounce we wanted to achieve in order to get more bullish.
I noted that the levels we were looking for were not exactly 1% retraces (see post for reasons) and our target retraces were: Dow 10,300, S&P 1,105, Nasdaq 2,225, NYSE 7,100 and Russell 625. What were the highs for the week on those indexes? Dow 10,310 (+10), S&P 1,103 (-2), Nasdaq 2,227 (+2), NYSE 7,098 (-2) and Russell 621 (-4). So that’s a net of +4 points out of 21,355 points worth of predictions on the retrace, accuracy to within .019% - not a bad showing for our patented 5% rule.
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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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