Oracle Miss Weighs On Tech Stocks, Spurs Bearish Options Action In Cloud Space
by Option Review - December 21st, 2011 1:40 pm
Today’s tickers: ORCL, INFA, LEN & JAG
ORCL - Oracle Corp. – It’s clear from the 14.6% drop in Oracle’s shares to $24.91 today that investors are disappointed with what the Company had to show for its efforts in the prior quarter. The second-largest software maker yesterday posted fiscal second-quarter profits of $0.54 a share on revenue of $8.81 billion, missing average analyst expectations of $0.57 a share on sales of $9.23 billion. Put buying in the weekly options suggest some traders expect the stock to extend losses ahead of the holiday. Overall options volume on Oracle Corp. has surpassed 205,000 contracts just before 1:00 PM ET as strategists looked to initiate a variety of post-earnings stances, from bearish trades looking for more pain on the horizon, to more optimistic positions that point to potential recovery in the name. Though the report may represent a surprise to the downside for many, it looks like one options player may have read the tea leaves accurately ahead of the earnings release. The strategist appears to have sold around 16,500 long-dated Jan. 2013 $35 strike calls on Oracle back on November 22 for a premium of $2.62 apiece when shares in the software giant were trading around $29.00. The purchase of a large number of call options at the Jan. 2013 $35 strike today may mean the investor is taking profits off the table. It appears approximately 16,500 calls were purchased in the first 20 minutes of the session this morning for an average premium of $1.04 each. If the original seller of the contracts did indeed buy to close the short stance in call options today, he or she has exited the bearish position with net profits of around $1.58 per contract.
INFA - Informatica Corp. – Oracle’s big quarterly earnings miss dragged down the tech sector…
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DiggOracle Call Buyer Portends Big Bullish Moves Ahead
by Option Review - November 17th, 2011 1:40 pm
Today’s tickers: ORCL, CTCT, PLCE & KO
ORCL - Oracle Corp. – U.S. stocks are accelerating to the downside this afternoon as concerns over Europe once again sour a market that had welcomed better-than-expected economic data this morning. The sea of red includes Oracle Corp., which currently trades 3.45% lower on the day at $30.89, just before 1:00 PM in New York. The pullback in the software maker’s shares today has not deterred one optimistic trader from taking a bullish stance on the stock out in the March 2012 expiry. The investor appears to have purchased 10,000 calls outright at the Mar. 2012 $36 strike for a premium of $0.92 each. Profits are available to the trader at expiration next year in the event that Oracle’s shares jump nearly 20.0% to surpass the effective breakeven price of $36.92. Shares in Oracle hit $36.50 on May 3 of this year, their highest since 2000, but have not topped $36.92 in at least a decade. Options implied volatility on the stock is up 15.5% to stand at 41.3% this afternoon.
CTCT - Constant Contact, Inc. – Fresh prints in Constant Contact call options suggests at least one strategist expects shares in the provider of email marketing and online survey solutions to rally over the next few months. Shares in CTCT fell 3.6% in the first half of the session to stand at $22.55 just before 11:40 AM ET. It looks like more than 1,300 in-the-money calls changed hands at the Mar. $22.5 strike against previously existing open interest of 65 contracts. Call volume is hefty relative to open interest at that strike and in comparison to overall open interest on the stock of 4,157 positions. One investor appears to have purchased nearly all of the ITM calls this morning for an average premium of $2.80 apiece. The trader stands prepared to profit should shares in Constant Contact rally 12.2% over the current price of $22.55 to surpass the average breakeven point at $25.30 at March expiration. The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company is scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings on February 2, 2012, well in advance of the March 16, 2012, expiration date on the calls.
PLCE - Children’s Place Retail Stores, Inc. – Shares in the specialty retailer of children’s apparel and accessories are up big today, rallying as much as 17.1% to an intraday high of $52.70, after the company posted better-than-expected third-quarter earnings of $1.33 a share and…
Which Way Wednesday – Fed Edition
by Phil - September 21st, 2011 8:28 am
Strap in folks, it’s going to be another wild ride!
As you can see from Doug Short’s S&P chart,we are about to slam right into that collapsing 50-day moving average, now at 1,223.40 – right about where the S&P topped out on yesterday’s morning spike. Unfortunately, the Nasdaq topped out and headed down before the other indexes got a chance to complete their up cycle and the Dollar rose back over the 77.50 line and tanked the market – exactly as we predicted it would at the bottom of yesterday morning’s post.
Of course, I can’t MAKE these things happen – I can only tell you what’s going to happen and give you trade ideas to help you profit from it. I mentioned that we had picked up 10 DIA 9/30 $115.75 calls in our virtual $25,000 Portfolio at $1.05 on Monday and they topped out at $1.75 (up 66%) but we took a non-greedy exit at $1.45 in the morning spike (up 33%) and we switched to 20 QQQ 9/30 $57 calls at .45 in the afternoon sell-off. So, we made $350 off a $1,050 investment and then we spend $900 but now we have 20 contracts instead of 10 but we also have $450 in cash so now risking just $600 of our original investment on the much more volatile Fed day.
Another trade idea we like ahead of the Fed that’s still playable is 20 FAS weekly $13/14 bull call spreads at .38 ($760), selling 10 JPM Oct $28 put for .55 ($550) for net $210 invested on the 20 $1 spreads. The worst-case on this spread is owning JPM for net $28.10, which is 13% off the current price and the best case is a $1,790 profit (852%) in a week. That sounds like a lot but options let you do funny things like at 11:30 in Member Chat, we saw PCLN making new highs against news that we thought was not actually that good for them on closer examination. Our trade idea to take advantage of that was:
If you want to play PCLN bearish – it’s very risky but the weekly $565/555 bear put spread is $6 and you can sell the $565 calls for $4.70 for net $1.30 on the $10 spread. Oct $620s are $4.10 so your bet is
…
Fickle Friday – Google Goes Down as Costs Inflate
by Phil - April 15th, 2011 8:19 am
Well who’d have thunk it?
The cost of doing business is rising and GOOG happens to be one of those businesses that lacks pricing power as their rates are generally set through an auction process and their users have to VOLUNTEER to pay more money to advertise. Most advertisers on Google are on fixed budgets, like MSM advertisers and Google has done a great job of replicating that model. Why then, should it be surprising if a maturing Google begins to look more like a traditional media outlet than a dot com company with exploding growth?
Don’t get me wrong, we love Google long-term but we did short them as well as BIDU into Google earnings as we felt Google would disappoint enough to spook BIDU investors as well. We’re taking the short money and running and looking for some bullish plays now – the drop from $630 last month to $545 today is plenty of froth blown off the top for us to get long-term interested again. As you can see from the tag cloud of the Conference Call, growth is still there, especially in mobile display ads (Android a bit disappointing) and no major negatives. I’m not going to write a whole thing about GOOG though, there are thousands of people doing that and our Members know well enough where I stand. I’m more interested in examining the bigger picture.
We expected Q1 earnings to be rough and we’ve already seen FDX, NKE, ORCL, RIMM, FAST, FCS and AA struggle so hopefully you don’t have to be hit on the head with another whole week of earnings before you get a little more cautious. Next week we hear from C, HAL, LLY, TXN, BK, GS, INTC, IBM, SYK, USB, VMW and YHOO on Monday and Tuesday and then we’re off to the races with hundreds of companies reporting each week for the rest of the month. Our job in the first few weeks of earnings season is to get a feel for the quarter and, so far, that feeling is rough.
It’s all about inflation, of course and don’t say we didn’t warn you about that one! We went more bearish up at those 100% lines we’ve been watching and now the question really is – how bad was it? Inflation is, after all, our long-term BULLISH premise. We don’t think corporations…
Testy Tuesday – AAPL Rebalancing in May May Keep the Nasdaq from 2,800 Today
by Phil - April 5th, 2011 8:18 am
The Nasdaq is finally rebalancing!
That is good news but not so much for Apple, Inc., whose current 20.49% weighting in the index will be cut to 12.33% on May 2nd. This explains a lot of the strange movement in the Nasdaq as apparently the cognescenti have already begun jockying their positions – trying to guess which of the 100 stocks in the Composite Index will curry some of AAPL’s lost favor.
Perhaps the the moves up in fellow 4-letter stocks like PCLN ($25Bn market cap), NFLX ($13Bn), OPEN ($2.5Bn), BIDU ($50Bn) and GMCR ($9.4Bn) don’t seem quite so crazy in light of the 40% reduction in AAPL ($314Bn) – take the money out of one bucket and you HAVE to fill up the others!
This does make me feel better as there may actually be a rational reason for NFLX having a p/e of 82 despite the fact that they have a completely indefensible service that already has competition from several on-line clones as well as big boys like AMZN, not to mention every cable and satellite company in America. Why does WFMI, a GROCERY STORE, trade at 41 times it’s projected 2011 earnings in the middle of the worst food inflation in US history? It’s not just because rich people are stupid and will overpay for anything because they hate to have people think they can’t afford stuff – it’s because their market cap is $11.4Bn and if you take 40% of AAPL’s $300Bn and distribute it around the Nasdaq – then WFMI get’s $1.2Bn of additional allocation.
That’s not exactly how it works but that’s the effect. A $1Bn Index fund who follows the Nasdaq has $205M of AAPL stock (20.49%) and, after the reweighing, they are to have $123M of AAPL stock. The other $82M does, in fact, get distributed to the other Nasdaq stocks according to the new weightings. Do you think that doesn’t distort the markets? Of course, that doesn’t "just" affect the Nasdaq – AAPL is a heavyweight in all the indexes.
The special rebalancing of the NASDAQ-100 Index will be enacted based on index securities and shares outstanding as of March 31 – now it is very clear why the MoMo stocks were jacked up like crazy into the end of Q1 – now the market manipulators have guaranteed bagholders for their stocks come May 2nd! On…
Freddie/Fannie Friday – Fat Forclosure Folios Forcasts Further Falls
by Phil - September 17th, 2010 7:56 am
![[FANREO]](http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MI-BF965_FANREO_NS_20100916200301.gif)
Our zombie GSE’s have now become the Nation’s biggest home sellers.
This could not come at a worse time as winter is always a poor time to sell homes, rates seem to have bottomed and there is no new stimulus (or new jobs, or immigration, or population growth) to spur demand. Yet, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae now own more than 191,000 homes (as of June 30th), which is double where they were last year and they are still taking back homes faster than they can sell them as we move into the peak (we hope!) of the foreclosure cycle.
Once they take homes back, Fannie and Freddie must not only cover the utility bills and property taxes, but they are also relying on thousands of real-estate agents and contractors to rehabilitate homes, mow lawns and clean pools. Fannie took a $13 billion charge during the second quarter just on carrying costs for its properties.
If demand remains weak, Fannie and Freddie could face pressure to take more aggressive steps to hold homes off the market. Fannie, for example, is testing an effort in Chicago where it will rent vacant foreclosures rather than list them for sale. Such a "lease-and-hold" approach could make sense in certain markets where "you believe the supply will take a long time to absorb, but there’s going to be an increase in employment going forward," says Douglas Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae.
In yesterday’s post, we discussed the death of the housing market and that brought about a discussion in Member Chat about my February article where I pointed out that the math of home ownership no longer works for many Americans (I also showed 3 different ways you can shave $100,000 in payments off a $200,000 home loan so I do suggest reading it if you haven’t already). Mark McHugh of The Daily Bail has a nice update today where he does the math and contends that "a look behind the numbers shows home ownership to be a poor investment." Barry Rhitholtz found a chart from Reality Bubble Monitor that matches with my contention yesterday (that the US has likely bottomed) but points out that our "boom" economies in Australia and Canada (and China is about the same) have bubbles that are still likely to pop:
As I said yesterday, home prices are all about affordability of mortgages and, should we get into a rising rate environment, we could…
Throw the Bums Out Thursday
by Phil - September 16th, 2010 8:11 am
There’s only one thing voters hate worse than Democrats:
That is, of course, Republicans. The latest NY Times/CBS News poll found that, while while voters rate the performance of Democrats negatively, they view Republicans as even worse with 63 percent disapproving of Democrats and 73 percent disapproving of Republicans. Still, the prevailing "they all suck" attitude is not good news for the Democrats as they have the most seats up for re-election and over 63% of the voters are pretty much determined to vote for "the other guy."
I would propose instead that we begin a national campaign to elect "None of the Above" as a write-in candidate. I don’t expect it to change much but it would force a lot of run-off elections and would send a real message to Washington that we are sick of the nonsense, that we are "as mad as Hell – and we’re not going to take it anymore." If you watch this video clip from 1976 (click picture) you’re realize how little progress we’ve made in 35 years of American politics. If only we’d taken Howard Beale’s Oscar-winning advice at the time and gotten off our sofas and actually said: "I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!" – maybe we could have done something about the Corporate Kleptocracy this nation has morphed into. Now, instead, we are once again asked to flip the switch for Republicans or Democrats and, if the candidates weren’t labeled, it would be very hard to tell most of them apart.
In many election cycles, voters readily acknowledge that they are dissatisfied with government or Congress in general, but they tend to have a stronger connection toward their own representative. That is not the case this year, with 55 percent of voters saying it is time for new leadership and only 34 percent saying their lawmaker deserves re-election. It is a historic high for a question asked in each midterm election year since 1990. Of course, the MSM plays a huge roll in this as 8 out of 10 Americans rate "the economy" negatively but, when asked about their own family’s financial situation, 6 of 10 say it is the same or improving. So 40% of the people feel their own situation is negative but 80% think it’s negative for everyone else. Gee, I wonder where they get that impression?
Voters do not perceive Republicans as having better ideas and…
Cautiously Optimistic Player Enacts Delta Neutral Hedge Ahead of Oracle Earnings
by Option Review - September 15th, 2010 4:10 pm
Today’s tickers: ORCL, DV, JNY, HOG, FDO & UA
ORCL – Oracle Corp. – Shares of the software company rallied as much as 1.45% this afternoon to touch an intraday high of $25.75, which is just $0.88 below the stock’s current 52-week high of $26.63. Options activity on Oracle is quite active ahead of the firm’s first-quarter earnings report scheduled for release after the closing bell tomorrow evening. One options investor hoping to see Oracle’s shares extend gains through the start of 2011 initiated a delta neutral hedge in the January 2011 contract. It looks like the trader purchased a total of 12,500 puts at the January 2011 $21 strike for a premium of $0.45 apiece, tied to the purchase of a large number of ORCL shares for $25.65 each, on a 0.15 delta. The long position in shares suggests perhaps that the investor expects tomorrow’s earnings report to lift shares and/or foresees continued bullish movement in the price of the underlying stock over the next 5 months. But, the put options serve as a type of insurance policy for the trader in case Oracle’s shares falter going forward. Options investors exchanged more than 77,800 contracts on the software maker by 3:10 pm ET.
DV – DeVry, Inc. – The for-profit operator of colleges and universities popped up on our ‘hot by options volume’ marker scanner after one investor initiated a call spread in the November contract. DeVry’s shares fell as much as 2.9% in the first half of the trading session to touch down at an intraday low of $41.25, but made a strong recovery in early afternoon trading, and currently stand 1.25% higher on the day at $43.01 as of 12:52 pm ET. The investor populating the November contract wisely established a contrarian debit call spread on the stock when shares were still in the red. The options strategist purchased 2,000 calls at the November $45 strike at a premium of $2.00 each, and sold the same number of calls at the higher November $50 strike for premium of $0.65 apiece. Net premium paid to purchase the spread amounts to $1.35 per contract. The investor is positioned to make money if DeVry’s shares rally another 7.8% over the current price of $43.01 to surpass the effective breakeven point at $46.35 by expiration day in November. Maximum potential profits of $3.65 per contract are available to the call-spreader if…
Straddle-Seller Sees Range-Bound Shares for Avanir Pharmaceuticals
by Option Review - September 3rd, 2010 5:09 pm
Today’s tickers: AVNR, S, ORCL, TSN, PSS, XRT & BX
AVNR – Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. – Shares of the pharmaceuticals firm fell as much as 9.6% this afternoon to an intraday low of $2.64 on news the company filed for a mixed shelf offering for up to $75 million. Options volume on the stock surged late in the session after one strategist sold a straddle in the December contract. The short straddle suggests the trader expects AVNR’s shares to trade within a specified range through expiration day in the final month of the year. The investor sold approximately 8,440 puts at the December $2.5 strike and sold 8,440 calls at the same strike to take in gross premium of $2.025 per contract. The straddle-seller retains the full amount of premium received if Avanir’s shares settle at $2.50 at expiration. However, the short stance taken in both call and put options expose him to losses should shares shift significantly in either direction away with from the strike price selected. Losses are certainly limited to the downside because shares cannot fall below $0.00. Thus, the investor faces maximum potential losses of $0.475 per contract in the event that Avanir’s shares are worthless at expiration. Losses could be more painful if AVNR shares suddenly fly upward. Shares would need to jump 71.4% to shatter the current 52-week high on the stock of $3.72 in order for losses to start to accumulate for the trader above the effective breakeven price to the upside at $4.525 by expiration. The strategy seems to indicate that the investor does not see AVNR shares collapsing to $0.00, but also suggests shares are not likely rally substantially any time soon.
S – Sprint Nextel Corp. – The wireless and wireline telecommunications company was one of the 10 most actively traded stocks on the New York Stock Exchange as of 1:00 pm ET this afternoon, and was also one of the most actively traded in terms of options volume today. Sprint’s shares earlier rallied 2.30% to record an intraday high of $4.44, but are currently up a lesser 1.15% at $4.39 as of 2:30 pm ET. Shares were perhaps higher on reports out this morning that suggested Sprint is currently looking at a possible November release date for Samsung’s Galaxy Tablet, which is a device aimed at rivaling Apple’s iPad. The vast majority of contracts exchanged on Sprint Nextel Corp.…
Visa, Inc. Call Options Fly Off the Shelves
by Option Review - June 21st, 2010 4:34 pm
Today’s tickers: V, AXP, GIS, HNZ, AFFY, REV, AA & ORCL
V – Visa, Inc. – Frenzied call buying ensued on global payments network, Visa, Inc., this afternoon with the price of the underlying shares rallying as much as 8.76% to secure an intraday high of $83.79. Visa’s shares are currently up a more modest 4.90% to stand at $80.82 as of 3:10 pm (ET). The sharp rally in Visa’s share price likely stems from news that U.S. politicians reached an agreement on the regulation of interchange/”swipe” fees on credit and debit card transactions. Investors flooded the near-term July contract on Visa, Inc. to initiate bullish stances on the stock. Options traders expecting continued upward movement in the price of Visa’s shares by July expiration picked up approximately 6,800 calls at the July $85 strike for an average premium of $1.41 each. Investors long the July $85 strike calls make money only if shares of the underlying stock trade above $86.41 ahead of expiration day next month. Buying interest spread to the higher July $90 strike where some 4,300 calls were purchased at an average premium of $0.46 each. Call buyers at this strike price accrue profits if the firm’s shares surge 11.9% from the current price of $80.82 to trade above the average breakeven point to the upside at $90.46 by July expiration day. Finally, investors honed in on the July $95 strike to take ownership of 1,300 calls for an average premium of $0.19 per contract. Options players populating Visa, Inc. this afternoon displayed a clear preference for bullish calls on the stock by exchanging more than 2.3 call options to each single put contract in play thus far in the session. But, some optimistic individuals utilized puts to take a near-term bullish stance on Visa. Investors sold at least 1,400 puts at the July $80 strike to receive an average premium of $2.81 per contract. Put sellers keep the full premium pocketed on the transaction as long as Visa’s shares exceed $80.00 through expiration day next month. Investors short the puts are apparently happy to have shares of the underlying stock put to them at an effective price of $77.19 each in the event the puts land in-the-money at expiration.
AXP – American Express Co. – The global payments company appeared on our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner this afternoon after one options strategist initiated…
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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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