Bearish Options Trade Bets XLU Rally Running On Empty
by Option Review - April 26th, 2013 10:02 pm
Today’s tickers: XLU, HPQ & QLIK
XLU - Utilities Select Sector SPDR – A large trade in XLU puts yesterday suggests at least one options market participant is preparing for the strong run in the price of the underlying to run out of juice in the near future. Shares in the Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF are up 0.20% today at $41.00, on the heels of a 17% move to the upside since the end of 2012. The biggest print in XLU options yesterday was the purchase of a block of 50,000 Jun $40 strike puts at a premium of $0.51 each. The bearish strategy starts making money if the price of the underlying slips 1.2% from the current price of $41.00 to breach the breakeven point on the downside at $40.49.
HPQ - Hewlett-Packard Co. – Weekly calls changing hands on Hewlett-Packard today look for shares in the name to rally in the near term. The stock is up 3.0% this afternoon to stand at $20.24 as of 12:25 p.m. ET. Shares in HPQ had been on a tear, rallying more than 60% during the first three months of 2013 to a six-month high of $24.05 on April 1st. Since then, however, the computer hardware maker’s shares have declined roughly 15% to reach the current level. Options traders positioning for shares to move higher next week appear to be buying the May 03 ’13 $20 and $21 strike calls this morning. It looks like traders snapped up 2,600 of the $20 strike calls at an average premium of $0.33 each and around 3,200 of the $21 strike calls for an average premium of $0.16 apiece. Call buyers stand ready to profit at expiration next week in the event that shares in HPQ exceed average breakeven points at $20.33 and $21.16, respectively. HPQ reports second-quarter earnings after the close on May 21st.
QLIK - Qlik Technologies, Inc. – Shares in the…
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Protective Puts Change Hands On Hewlett-Packard As Shares Hit Highest Since May
by Option Review - March 18th, 2013 2:13 pm
Today’s tickers: HPQ, EBAY & PMTI
HPQ - Hewlett-Packard Co. – An upgrade to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’ with a price target of $27.00 at Morgan Stanley this morning is helping shares in Hewlett-Packard rise to the highest level since May of 2012. Shares in HPQ, up roughly 100% since touching down at a multi-year low of $11.35 in November, rallied 2.5% on Monday morning to trade at $22.72 as of 11:30 a.m. ET. Perhaps seeking to lock in HPQ’s strong gains during the past five months, some options traders appear to be snapping up protective puts on the stock. Notable volume in the May $23 strike put options changed hands during the first half of the trading day, with volume topping 5,400 contracts versus previously existing open interest of 297 lots. It looks like most of these in-the-money contracts were purchased in the early going at an average premium of $1.28 apiece. Profits, or downside protection, on the strategy kick in if shares in Hewlett-Packard drop 4.4% from the current price of $22.72 to breach the average breakeven point on the downside at $21.72 by May expiration.
EBAY - eBay, Inc. – Bullish options looking for shares in the online marketplace operator and payment services provider to reverse recent losses are active today. The stock is down 1.0% on the day at $49.90 as of 11:50 a.m. in New York, on the heels of a more than 12% pullback in the price of the underlying from the stock’s 52-week high of $57.27 set back in February. Trading traffic in weekly calls on eBay suggests some traders are preparing for shares in the name to rebound this week, with upwards of 2,600 lots in play at the Mar. 22 ’13 $52.5 strike versus open interest of 1,122 contracts. It looks like most of the call options were purchased earlier in the session at an average premium of $0.08 each. Call buyers may profit at expiration this week in the event that EBAY shares rally 5.4% over the current…
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Options Volume On HPQ Jumps As Shares Dive To Lowest In A Decade
by Option Review - November 20th, 2012 2:10 pm
Today’s tickers: HPQ, KKD & ABX
HPQ - Hewlett-Packard Co. – Shares in HPQ fell to their lowest level in a decade on Tuesday after the company announced fourth-quarter results that missed analyst expectations for sales and included an $8.8 billion impairment charge related to its Autonomy business. Options on the PC maker are seeing heavy volume amid an ugly selloff in the price of the underlying, currently trading down 11% at $11.84 as of 12:35 p.m. ET. Nearly 250,000 call and put options have changed hands on the stock versus the average daily options volume of 47,726 contracts. Calls are slightly more active than puts, with the call-to-put ratio hovering around 1.1 in early-afternoon trading. Weekly calls, specifically the Nov. 23 ’12 $12 strike contracts, attracted particularly heavy trading traffic today. It looks like some strategists are betting the stock could rebound somewhat off its post-earnings report lows by the end of the week. Upwards of 23,000 of the $12 strike weekly calls traded in the first half of the session today against open interest of just 696 contracts. It appears most of these contracts were purchased for an average premium of $0.10 apiece, and may mean some options market participants are placing cheap near-term bullish bets on the computer maker. Traders long the weekly contracts make money as long as shares in HPQ increase 2.2% over the current price of $11.84 to settle above the average breakeven price of $12.10 at expiration.
KKD - Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. – It’s a sweet day for investors in Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc., with shares in the name soaring 22.5% on the back of better-than-expected third-quarter earnings to the highest level in more than a year. Shares in the doughnut maker are off earlier highs, but continue to trade up approximately 20% on the session at $9.04 as of 11:50 a.m. ET. Buyers of bullish options on Krispy Kreme yesterday prior to the earnings report are enjoying sizable overnight…
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Which Way Wednesday – Probably Both Ways, Again
by phil - November 14th, 2012 8:31 am
What was that mess yesterday?
As you can see from David Fry's SPY chart, we went up and finished down but the volume was a bit lower to the upside than the sell-off into the close. MSFT and INTC led us to the downside – no surprise really as we discussed both this weekend as Dow components to avoid in the current cycle.
There was no significant economic data, just the usual nonsense about Greece and, of course, the drumbeat of fear regarding the US fiscal cliff that the MSM is banging 24/7. "What's up with that fiscal cliff" is now how 90% of my conversations begin with anyone who knows what I do for a living.
I now find that it's easier to say "Oh, we're all totally doomed" than to explain why we're not because when, for example, I say this to one of my Mother's friends – they nod wisely and agree with me while, if I try to explain why they shouldn't worry so much – they get all confused and then say to my Mom – "I thought he was supposed to understand the stock market."
I guess I should have tried this with my children. Rather than sitting up for 15 minutes or so explaining why there are not monsters under their bed – I could have just agreed with them and said "Yep, big hungry ones!" Maybe they'd never sleep again but at least I'd sound knowledgeable about monsters and the imminent dangers they posed to sleeping children.
Stocks are now at 3-month lows and it's been a month since we strung together 2 up days in a row (Oct 15-17) with the S&P falling from 1,470 on Oct 5th to yesterday's low of 1,371 fir a 99-point drop in 25 trading sessions (6.8%) – losing an average of 4 S&P points a day with 1,360 being our Must Hold line on the Big Chart. The S&P and the NYSE are both, so far, holding their lines (NYSE is 8,000) and they are our broadest indexes but we're pretty close to having to layer our disaster hedges as we cross those -7.5% lines.
The S&P was at 1,440 when we put up our latest round of disaster hedges on the 20th of October. Before that, we had just been using TZA as our primary hedge –…
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Which Way Wednesday – Is the Appleconomy Over?
by phil - October 24th, 2012 8:32 am
AAPL is a total disaster.
There's no denying it now, they had their IPad Mini event yesterday and investors charged out of the stock, dropping it from a high of $633 (which is already 10% off the Sept highs) to close at $613 and that was finally weak enough to get us to capitulate and roll back our AAPL positions to longer-term trades that have less upside but, more importantly, less downside as we are no longer confident they'll be able to turn it around on Friday.
Notice how silly it seems to talk about how poorly AAPL is performing when the chart on the right pretty clearly indicates it's the greatest stock on Earth but that would be the logical conclusion for a company that's on track to earnings $43Bn this year, which is $81,811 a minute – more even than what they were tracking to make last month, when I set out bottom target at $600 (and that spread is an even better buy now) AND, only 68% of what they are projected to make next year!
We didn't really think it would hit $600 – that was our worst-case but here we are – at the worst case and, since we are no longer able to say with conviction that it can't get any worse, we had to back our short-term plays to something that buys us more time. In that same post we liked HPQ at $14.30 and at least they are holding that line and we also had a nice spread on that stock in the same post, which is still holding up as a new spread.
In that post I mentioned (as usual) our primary hedge being TZA and the straight-up April $15 calls mentioned there have gone up another .40, from $2.50 to $2.90 off our $2.10 entry (up 38%) – not bad against just a 15-point drop in the Russell (down 2%).
Yesterday, with our hedges already in place (see last Wednesday's TZA hedge and this Monday's DIA hedge) we had the luxury of doing some bottom-fishing yesterday with long trade ideas on TIVO at $9.78, USO at $31.75, AAPL at $623, CMG at $238 and our last trade idea for the day was SQQQ at $41.20 (that one, of course, is another hedge – always look for BALANCE!) – just…
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Wednesday Worries – AAPL Makes $76,103 While You Read This
by phil - October 10th, 2012 8:44 am
$76,103 – That's not sales, that's profit!
Every minute of every day, AAPL is making $76,103 (at $40Bn a year) on the sale of $316,120 worth of products. No company on Earth comes close to that kind of metric and, overall, the stock's performance clearly indicates that but, if you listen to the MSM, you would think AAPL is finished.
We had a nice, in-depth discussion about AAPL in Member Chat this morning and we not only concluded it's still a buy but we came up with a lovely spread that has the potential to turn $3,000 into $45,000 between now and Jan 2015 if AAPL simply holds $600 – needless to say we're very proud of that as it's always nice to have a trade or two in your portfolio that returns 1,500% and we rarely get a chance to do them with a blue-chip stock like AAPL.
Note in the above chart, that AAPL is still a relative outperformer this year – shown priced against HPQ, DELL, INTC, IBM, CAT and ISRG – all good companies that have simply failed to keep up. We also like HPQ at this level, now $14.30 as their REDUCED guidance has them earning $3.62 per share next year after earning $4.05 this year and that's still 25% back on your money, which sure beats TBills and we're not even counting the $18Bn in cash they have on hand, which is quite a lot when you consider that their entire market cap is now just $28Bn. Small wonder HPQ spent $9Bn buying back their own stock last year, when it was priced 100% higher.
HPQ is a pretty good candidate for a buy/write, where we Buy the stock for $14.30 and Write 2014 $15 puts and calls (sell short) for $5.50 and that nets $8.80 on the trade and, if HPQ is below $15 in Jan 2014, then another round of shares will be put to you at $15 for an average entry on 2x of $11.90, which is 17% below the current price and, if HPQ is over $15 in 16 months, then you get called away at $15 for a $6.20 profit on cash (75%). Buy/writes are our favorite tools for making long-term entries – see "How to Buy a Stock for a 15-20% Discount."
As we mentioned INTC in the above chart, let's look at a similar…
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Thrilling Thursday – Romney and the Markets Turn Up
by phil - October 4th, 2012 8:32 am
What a debate last night!
One of the candidates will lower taxes for the middle class and small businesses while slamming shut loopholes on the rich and Big Business, limiting their deductions and raising taxes if needed, he will provide national health-care and concentrate on jobs, punishing outsourcers and educating US workers to get them on the path to full employment. The other candidate is already President. Romney now claims there will be no 20% tax cut for the rich – I assume his rich backers assume he's lying to get elected (lying doesn't bother them) and President Obama was in no way prepared to debate the guy who showed up yesterday and he lost the debate in an embarrassing fashion.
From a market perspective, we were playing the weakness as nervousness ahead of the debates and accumulating long positions as planned yesterday. Oil blew past the $88.50 target I set in yesterday's morning post – all the way to $87.70 before finally bouncing back and hitting our target again overnight (now $88.64). That drop from $91.22 in the Futures was good for $3,500 per contract in the Futures but, of course, we were done being short, as planned at $88.50 and in fact made a couple of bullish trades – long on USO at $33 (as planned) and short on SCO at $44. We'll see how they work out today but up at the open is a good sign.
HPQ was irresistible as it tested $15 (long-term positions) and BBY gave us a good entry again at $17.50. We made a quick 50% on the TNA weekly $61.50 calls, which we grabbed for $1 in our $25,000 Virtual Portfolio at 10:09 in Member Chat and we caught a nice move up to $1.50 not even 30 minutes later as our 838 line (weak bounce) on the Russell continues to hold.
Our bullish stance on AAPL finally paid off as the stock went from $660 to $672 at the close – hopefully $680 is next. Gasoline only got to $2.75 (we were hoping for $2.70) but is back to $2.86 already in pre-market trading (/RB).
As you can see from Dave Fry's Russell chart, we're still in a bullish consolidation – just below our breakout level and today, so far, we don't have rising Dollar headwinds to hold us back…
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Will We Hold It Wednesday – S&P 1,440 Edition – Again
by phil - October 3rd, 2012 8:18 am
1,440 – Again.
That's right, we have made not one inch of progress since we had the same exact title in last Wednesday's post, when I said: "This is the part where the MSM begins to realize that Manufacturing is slowing down, stimulus won't create jobs, earnings are not going to be as good as expected, Europe is not fixed, housing is not as strong as expected andthe stock market is being manipulated. Yep, all the stuff I've been telling you for months." Our plan was to buy into the dip and that's what we've been doing the past week as our short-term virtual portfolios are now much more bullish than they were a week ago.
As you can see from Dave Fry's weekly SPY chart, we're still in an uptrending channel and still over the major support line at 1,420 and we tested 1,430 at the end of last week but have, so far, held 1,440 this week.
Last week we were all worried about Spain because they were rioting in the streets and this week we are all worried about Spain because they haven't requested a bail-out yet. "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose," as they say in the country next to Spain…
In Member Chat last Wednesday, we took advantage of Oil Futures (/CL) testing $90 to go long and by the end of the week it was back to where we liked to short it at $93 and this morning, ahead of inventories, oil is at $91.22 but we're not long today as we don't expect the bulls to have much to get excited about but, if we get a dip to $88.50 that holds – we'd like to go long there. As you can see from this USO chart – we're pretty well stuck in the channel but the bottom is about $89 so I'm thinking a build this morning takes us just below the $33 line on USO.
AAPL was at $666 last Wednesday and they closed at $665 yesterday but we've worked ourselves into a more bullish position there (we had several long-term bullish trade ideas on AAPL in Member Chat that day). XLF was holding $15.50 and we went longer there – now $15.69. We added QQQ Oct $70s at .30 and yesterday we had the chance to add them again…
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Friday – QE Fever Turns To QE Forever!
by phil - September 14th, 2012 8:28 am
$85Bn a month!
Oh boy was I wrong when I said Ben Bernanke wasn't crazy enough to ease into a bull market. Yesterday, he exercised the full power of the Federal Reserve to confiscate your wealth and hand it over to the bankers. That's right, by engaging in what many consider reckless money-printing practices and announcing there is no end in sight, Bernanke caused the Dollar to fall below 79, down from 84 (6%) before all this QE talk began.
That's like taking all $100Tn worth of US Assets – everything you worked for your entire life – and just devaluing them by 6%. Many of our Conservative friends decry the 1% tax on wealth imposed by the French – but at least they are honest about it. At least they debate it and vote on it. Not Bern Bernanke – the Federal Reserve Chairman simply decrees that you will contribute 6% of your dollar-denominated assets towards more bank bail-out and there's no cut-off if you are below the top 2% – this is a confiscation from every man, woman and child in America.
How far down will Dr. Bernanke take your Dollars? That's the beauty of it – there's no limit! He warned Corporate America yesterday that he will continue to give them FREE MONEY as long as they keep refusing to hire more workers. The less American workers they hire – the more money he will give them. Sure, they can hire and spend overseas (most are) because that won't affect US unemployment rates but, if they start hiring Americans – THAT's when he will begin to take away the punch bowl.
See how this scam works?
It is hard to see how another round of QE would help the economy. Long-term interest rates are already at historic lows. With rates this low, even if QE put effective downward pressure on rates — a dubious proposition — the economy would be unlikely to benefit. If a 3.5% mortgage rate is of little consequence, there is no reason to believe that a 3.4% or even 3.3% rate would suddenly produce results.
Nor would quantitative easing result in a burst of money creation, as per traditional monetary policy, because the Fed now pays a quarter-point interest on excess bank reserves. With little growth in the demand for…
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Try it Again Tuesday – What Will it Take to Move the Markets Higher?
by phil - September 4th, 2012 8:26 am
If it's Tuesday, we must be at the week's highs.
Obviously, we're still bearish and the news we've been discussing this morning in Member Chat certainly hasn't changed my opinion on that. Back on August 7th (first Tuesday of last month), I said we were about $700Bn in stimulus short of what we need to support S&P 1,400 and we knew we would have to wait a month to see how much we got from Draghi and Bernanke but, so far, and with Ben already out of the way, we have zero.
At $10Bn per S&P point that puts our fair value all the way down to 1,330 but keep in mind that the $500Bn we did get only lasts for 6 months so more like 1,310 at this point without a proper commitment by the ECB or Fed this week. Even 1,310 would be up 50 from the June lows and it would represent a neat 2/3 retracement of the rally since then. Our $25,000 Portfolio has, if anything, gotten more bearish as we dragged along the top but another thing we've done each Tuesday has been to take aggressive bullish positions to cover ourselves IN CASE someone actually does put up the cash needed to goose the markets over our breakout levels (see Friday's post for current positions in the virtual Portfolio and our levels).
On Tuesday, August 14th, our trade ideas were as follows:
- 2 FAS Oct $105/115 bull call spread at $2, selling 1 BBY 2014 $18 puts for $3.25 for net .75, now $1.80 – up 140% (trade stopped at 150%) -
- 2014 SHLD $32.50 puts sold for $7.50, now $6 – up 20%
- 6 EWJ Jan $9 calls at .53, selling 1 BBY 2014 $18 put at $3.25 for a net .07 credit, still net $2.60 credit – down 3,800% (trade stopped at up 1,000%)
…
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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
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