Iron Condor Crops Up on Tyco International Ltd.
by Option Review - February 18th, 2011 5:17 pm
Today’s tickers: TYC, JWN, ACOR & MRO
TYC - Tyco International Ltd. – An investor expecting shares in Tyco International to remain range bound over the next couple of months constructed an iron condor on the industrial products company using call and put options expiring in April. Shares in Tyco are currently up 0.40% to stand at $46.98 as of 10:40am in New York. The options strategist appears to have sold the 900-lot April $48/$50 call spread to pocket an average net credit of $0.55 per contract, in combination with the sale of the 900-lot April $43/$45 put spread for an average net credit of $0.35 per contract. The iron condor yields a total net credit of $0.90 per contract, which the investor keeps in full as long as shares in Tyco International trade above $45.00 and below $48.00 through April expiration. Buying the higher-strike calls and the lower-strike puts reduces the harvestable premium on the short legs of the transaction, but also caps losses for the investor in case the position moves against him at some point. The investor faces maximum potential losses of $1.10 per contract if shares either rally above $50.00, or slip beneath $43.00 ahead of expiration day in April.
JWN - Nordstrom, Inc. – Shares in specialty fashion retailer, Nordstrom, are up 1.55% at $47.20 this morning following the firm’s better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings report after the close of trading on Thursday. Nordstrom said it earned $1.04 a share in the quarter, beating average analyst estimates of $1.00 a share. Additionally, the retailer reported it is buying the online private sale marketplace HauteLook, which has some 4 million members, for $180 million in stock. Nordstrom is reportedly the first department store chain to purchase one of the limited-time deal, or ‘flash-sale’, websites. Trading in JWN by one…
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn 
del.icio.us
DiggBullish Investors Flock to Popular, Inc. as Shares Reach a New 52-Week High
by Option Review - April 13th, 2010 4:40 pm
Today’s tickers: BPOP, SLV, XRT, RCL, USO, MRO, AVP, PG & CROX
BPOP – Popular, Inc. – Shares of the largest bank in Puerto Rico surged 26.5% during the trading session to a new 52-week high of $3.86 after the firm was raised to ‘buy’ from ‘neutral’ and given a target share price of $3.50 at B. Riley & Co. Popular’s shares took off running on news the company may sell its Evertec unit and some other businesses for $1 billion. Options traders enacted bullish strategies on the stock to position for continued upward movement in the price of the underlying stock. Plain-vanilla call buying took place at the April $3.5 strike where approximately 9,400 now in-the-money contracts were picked up for an average premium of $0.14 apiece. Other traders displayed optimism on Popular, Inc. by shedding put options. Roughly 4,500 puts were sold short at the April $3.0 strike for a premium of $0.06 each. Investors keep the premium received as long as shares trade above $3.00 through expiration day on Friday. Similar bullish activity was observed in the May contract today. Investors paid an average premium of $0.28 per contract to take ownership of nearly 8,000 in-the-money call contracts at the May $3.5 strike price. Additionally, traders expecting shares of BPOP to remain above $3.50 through May expiration shed 6,200 put options at the May $3.5 strike to receive an average premium of $0.33 each. Put sellers at this strike price keep the full premium pocketed on the trade as long as shares of the underlying stock exceed $3.50 through expiration day. Investors short the puts are apparently happy to have BPOP-shares put to them at an effective price of $3.17 each should the put options land in-the-money at expiration. Options players exchange 83,855 contracts at Popular, Inc. as of 3:00 pm (ET), which represent more than 55% of the total existing open interest on the stock of 151,847 contracts.
SLV – iShares Silver Trust ETF – Shares of the silver ETF, an exchange-traded fund whose share price typically reflects the price of silver owned by the Trust at any given time less the Trust’s expenses and liabilities, increased 0.35% in late afternoon trading to stand at $17.87. Options activity on the stock, however, indicates at least one investor is expecting the price of the underlying shares to decline ahead of July expiration. It looks like the bearish…
2010 – Time to Arrest the Oil Extortionists?
by Phil - December 30th, 2009 4:58 am
Is "extortion" too strong a word for what’s being done to us?
Extortion is a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation, trickery, or some other form of pressure or force. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way. Coercion may involve the actual infliction of physical pain/injury or psychological harm in order to enhance the credibility of a threat. The threat of further harm may lead to the cooperation or obedience of the person being coerced.
Perhaps there is not much we can do to stop the criminal cartel known as OPEC from withholding the supply of oil (they have cut production by 5M barrels a day globally in the past 18 months) or the US Energy cartel that has taken 32.4% of the US rigs off-line in the past 12 months – EVEN though oil prices are UP 100% over the same time period. I’m sure, if called to testify before Congress, T Boone and company will do some song and dance to pretend the economics of $80 oil justify 32.4% less drilling than $40 oil did last December rather than the very obvious fact that, by cutting off 32% of our supply, they were able to EXTORT us, to force us to pay through trickery and the pressure of witholding a vital commodity - an extra $40 per barrel.
$40 a barrel is costing the US consumer $760M a day – and that’s without the refining mark-up. $760M a day is $277Bn a year stolen from US citizens alone and over $1Tn globally – that’s 20 Madoff scams a year! If the oil companies were witholding water or air from us and demanding more money for something they were able to readily produce more of, then we would KNOW it was torture, right? Why should oil be different? It’s not a choice – for good or ill, we need energy to survive in this modern world every bit as much as we need air and water yet we allow both the blatant cartel of OPEC as well as the private cartel of US petroleum producers to manipulate the supply of energy and FORCE…
Friday – The Good, the Bad and the GDP
by Phil - May 29th, 2009 7:03 am
Clearly there are people who will do anything for money.
In the classic movie, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," the characters all lie, cheat, steal and kill as they chase after a chache of government gold. They all kill, they all try to kill each other and the only character trait they all share is they will all do anything for money. We are lucky enough to have a modern version of that, with our own government supplying GOLDman Sachs and other bad market manipulators with TARP money, which they are using to, not to lend money to the good citizens of the US but rather to prop up the commodities market, stealing Billions of dollars from the very people they claimed they were going to help.
Since the November bail-out, consumer lending had gone down, home foreclosures have gone up, unemployment has gone up, housing has gone down yet the CRB has gone up 25%, led by oil, which is up 88% at $66 this morning. $66 oil is a noose around the neck of this economy as the it was cheaper oil that helped us begin to recover as it stayed around $40 from November through the beginning of March. On a per barrel basis alone, that was $500M a day LESS than we are paying now but, despite the fact that oil is still 54% in price from this time last year, gasoline has gone up so fast that it’s only down 23% from the prices that knocked the wheels out from our economy. Including refined products, that extra $26 a barrel is costing US consumers $1Bn a day, $365Bn a year or 1/2 of the TARP money going straight out of our economy and back to the countries that fund terrorism through the very ugly hands of GS (who are partners in ICE) and other TARP recipients who have funded and coordinated this commodity "rally," screwing the American people over with our own tax dollars.
Aside from the very obvious upgrades by the TARP-sponsored Financial houses of anything and everything that even smells like oil and the GE-sponsored 24/7 pump-fest on CNBC, we now have Goldman Sachs this morning telling the sheeple specifically to: "sell Petrobras October $34 put options for $1.95 because a U.S. economic recovery and lower petrochemical supplies will limit declines in the price of oil." What Goldman does not mention is…
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Chinese
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
(