Bulls Snap Up Tractor Supply Co. Call Options
by Option Review - July 5th, 2011 6:30 pm
Today’s tickers: TSCO, INFY, AOL & HBI
TSCO - Tractor Supply Co. – Bullish players paid Tractor Supply Co. options a visit at the start of the U.S. trading week with shares in the operator of retail farm and ranch stores increasing as much as 2.4% to a new all-time high of $69.45. Investors expecting shares in the specialty retailer to extend gains in the near term exchanged more than 1,400 calls at the July $70 strike against previously existing open interest of 265 contracts. It looks like most of the calls were purchased for an average premium of $0.77 apiece. Call buyers make money if shares in Tractor Supply rally another 1.9% over today’s high of $69.45 to surpass the average breakeven price of $70.77 by July expiration. Put options in the front month attracted some attention, as well. Investors betting shares in TSCO are likely to exceed $60.00 through expiration day sold 267 puts at the July $60 strike for an average premium of $0.09 each. Meanwhile, some 300 puts were purchased for an average premium of $0.40 up at the July $65 strike. The rise in demand for options on the stock helped lift options implied volatility on the stock 7.2% to 31.84% by 11:30 am ET. July contract call and put options expire ahead of Tractor Supply Co.’s second-quarter earnings report after the final bell on July 20.
INFY - Infosys Technologies Ltd. – Shares in Infosys have been in recovery-mode since touching down at a 6-month low of $60.30 two weeks prior. The stock gained 9.7% to trade as high as $66.14 this morning, but options activity on the stock today suggests one strategist is poised to benefit from a pull back in the price of the underlying. The provider of IT services and solutions is…
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DiggWheeeeeeekly Wrap-Up
by Phil - April 17th, 2010 8:22 am
Wheeee! That was fun – let’s do it again!
There is nothing more fun than a nice, big dip in the roller coaster that you are prepared for and nothing more terrifying than a sudden, unexpected drop you were not prepared for (think air pockets on planes). I know my incessant harping on fundamentals gets annoying and makes me somewhat of a party pooper at market tops but think of my commentary as that "clack, clack, clack" sound you hear when a roller coaster is climbing to the top of the tracks – the sound lets you know there’s a big drop coming and the more clacks you hear – the bigger the dip is likely to be.
In fact, much like a roller-coaster, most of our well-prepared members were disappointed that we didn’t get a BIGGER dip on Friday but we’ve learned not to be greedy on the bear side and to quickly take those profits on our short-term plays while we let our long-term disaster hedges run wild, waiting patiently for the big score. By the way, it’s not that we’re perma-bears – far from it, when Cramer, Adami, Finerman, John AND Peter Najarian were telling you to crawl into a bunker and hide your head in the sand a year ago – I was the one yelling BUYBUYBUY while our hugely successful Buy List, which is the bulk of our virtual portfolios, has been all bullish since Feb 8th. Just because we think a rally is BS, doesn’t mean we don’t participate in it!
As a fundamentalist, I believe there is a market "truth" a real value that can be placed on stocks and indexes based on reality, not hype and, when the MSM hype stampedes the herd and takes the market (or an individual stock) too far one way or the other – we simply step in and take advantage of it. It’s not complicated but it takes a little bit more work than the average "Lightning Round" participant is used to so PSW is not for everybody – this is our JOB, not our hobby, but boy is it fun when we get it right!
Despite the sell-off this week, we still finished up over 11,000 on the Dow but poor 1,200 on the S&P couldn’t hold and Nas 2,500 was merely a brief flirtation. The NYSE fell all the way to 7,550, down 200 from Thursday’s…
Testy Tuesday Morning
by Phil - January 5th, 2010 8:27 am
Wow – what a lot of work to get back to last Tuesday’s high!
As usual, the vast majority of gains came in pre-market trading and the rest came in light-volume, early morning trading while the rest of the day was dominated by every buyer finding a willing seller for 75% of the day’s volume. We saw what happened on Thursday when someone big wants to sell and there are no buyers so we’ll see how long the bull’s luck (manufactured or otherwise) will hold out as we begin to get economic data along with some early earnings reports.
The Ag sector popped 2% yesterday ahead of tonight’s earings from MOS with MON checking in tomorrow morning so we’ll see how wise those last-minute bets were in short order. SONC also has earnings tonight and we like those guys long-term. SONC makes a decent buy/write candidate as you can buy the stock for $10.29 and sell June $10 puts and calls for $2.25 for a net entry of $8.04 with a very nice 24% profit if called away at $10 and an average entry of $9.02 (a 12% discount) if more stock is put to you below $10 in June.
FDO and WOR also report tomorrow morning. FDO will be interesting but a weak dollar probably hurt them last quarter. Tomorrow night we hear from BBBY, BLUD, OHB and Sonic competitor RT, who seem a bit pricey at $7.50. Thursday we get our first real builder, LEN along with STZ and TXI. After the bell on Thursday we hear from APOL, CRI and SCHN with GBX and PSMT on Friday. AA officially kicks of earnings season next Monday with GAP, INFY, KBH, BGG, SCHW, SHFL, INTC and JPM highlighting the reporters.
We have plenty of data this week including Factory Orders and Pending Home Sales at 10 am along with December Auto Sales throughout the day (did you get a new car for Christmas?). Tomorrow is jobs day, with the ADP Report and Challenger Job Cuts ahead of the bell followed by ISM Services (yesterday’s ISM was a nice beat) and, of course, Crude Inventories at 10:30 which are unlikely to sustain $82 oil (USO Jan $40 puts for .80 are a good way to play this). We talked about the other stuff yesterday so I won’t repeat it – suffice to say we have plenty of data this week to see if we justify these lofty levels.
Everyone is talking…
Weekly Wrap-Up – The Return of Fundamentals?
by Phil - September 27th, 2009 8:23 am
Fundamentals don’t matter, until they do – then they matter a lot…
We had a fantastic week because we stuck to the fundamentals and stayed short – even though it was a very painful path to follow. In last week’s wrap-up, facing the never-ending market climb on low volume I had said "I am trying to get bullish, really I am," and I was trying to find bullish plays for members - but we still ended up bearish for the week with a lot of bearish plays being added and thank goodness as it gave us a fantastic week this week!
Just following the plays I mentioned in last week’s wrap-up would have been great as we had SKF bullish at $21 (now $26), DIA bearish at $98 (now $96.74), FAZ bullish at $16 (now $22.12), OIH bearish at $120 (now $114.75), SRS bullish at $8.50 (now $9.93) – and those were just from Thursday and Friday, last week was very active and very successful. I had been quoting Samuel Jackson to highlight my difficulty joining the bullish analysts and I closed last week’s comments by saying: "It really is hard to be the shepherd in this market as I see wolves everywhere, waiting to pounce on the flock as the mainstream media leads them off to slaughter. Or maybe (hopefully) I’m just being paranoid and everything’s fine…"
Monday I led off the week with my concerns about the spread of the flu, as the season is upon us. That gave us 4 bullish (but hedged) plays on SVA, BCRX and CAH (2), none of which are performing so far so all of which are still good entries, especially CAH who got whacked by a DB downgrade on Thursday yet paid back $1Bn in debt on Friday and still look very good long-term.
I had an early look at the G20s "Framework for Sustainable and Balanced Growth," and our conclusion was that, although a good plan, it sure wasn’t something the markets should be all pumped up about as stability was not going to grow us into the bullish valuations that our stocks had already risen to. I warned members that the media was misinterpreting/misrepresenting this report saying: "You can bet though, that "THEY" are acting on this information and they will be SELLSELLSELLING, as they did on Friday afternoon even as the MSM pump-monkeys continue to tell you to BUYBUYBUY as if, not only has the economy fully recovered –…
Hewlett Packard bull call spread at large
by Option Review - April 6th, 2009 5:35 pm
Today’s tickers: HPQ, FXI, WFC, UNP, MGM, LVS, INFY, VIX, TXT & F
HPQ Hewlett-Packard Company – The world’s largest technology company has seen its shares decline by more than 1.5% to stand at $33.53. Despite the dip in shares today, HPQ received very good news regarding EDS, an HP company. EDS, a leading IT outsourcing firm and a global technology services provider, was selected by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to “provide information technology (IT) solutions for all federal government agencies under the GSA Alliant contract”. EDS will be vying for task orders along with 59 other companies under the $50 billion contract. In line with the bullish news, though not necessarily inspired by it, one investor established a bull call spread in the January 2010 contract. At the January 40 strike price 10,000 calls were purchased for 2.80 apiece and spread against the sale of 10,000 calls at the January 50 strike for a premium of 75 cents each. The net cost of the call spread amounts to 2.05 and yields a maximum potential profit of 7.95 if shares can rally all the way up to $50.00 by expiration next year. In order to achieve such a rise shares would need to jump by 49% over the next nine months. Shares of HPQ have not traded above $50.00 since December 31, 2007.
FXI iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index Fund – The Chinese ETF appeared on our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner this afternoon amid a 1% dip in shares to $30.55. Despite the fact that shares are off slightly, one trader initiated a bullish calendar spread. This optimistic investor sold 8,500 calls at the May 32 strike price for an average premium of 1.60 and repurchased 8,500 calls at the January 2010 40 strike price for 1.70 each. The trader receives a credit of 10 cents for rolling his position forward by about 8 months while bearing the risk that shares rise above $32.00 as he is short 8,500 calls at the May 32 strike. This trade implies that the investor does not see shares rallying above $32.00 by expiration in May, but does want to see shares rise by 31% to break through the January 40 strike by January’s expiration. Elsewhere, option traders purchased 15,000 puts at the May 25 strike price for 60 cents apiece along with some 10,000 put options which traded…
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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
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