Analyst Upgrade Fuels Bullish Option Plays on Iron-Ore Giant Vale
by Andrew Wilkinson - January 19th, 2010 4:36 pm
Today’s tickers: VALE, MBT, FXI, NWL, CSE, VZ, XLV, CBY, HSY & SYMC
VALE – Vale S.A. – Shares of the world’s largest producer of iron-ore surged 2.75% in afternoon trading to stand at $31.18 after the firm received an upgrade to ‘overweight’ from ‘equal weight’ with a target share price of $39.00 at Barclays Capital. Indications of like-minded optimism are apparent in today’s option trading patterns on the stock. It looks like one investor initiated a put credit spread in the March contract. The bullish transaction involved the sale of 5,000 puts at the March $31 strike for a premium of $1.67 apiece, spread against the purchase of 5,000 puts at the lower March $28 strike for an average premium of $0.66 each. The credit spread results in a net credit of 1.01 per contract to the investor, who keeps the full premium received if VALE’s shares trade above $31.00 through expiration in March. The width of the spread indicates maximum potential losses on the trade of $1.99 per contract if shares of the iron-ore maker slump to $28.00 ahead of expiration.
MBT – Mobile Telesystems OJSC – The Russian provider of wireless communication services appeared on our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner this afternoon due to near-term bullish options activity. Optimistic option plays fit neatly with the current 3.5% rally in shares of the underlying to $52.25 today. Traders sold 2,500 puts at the February $47.5 strike for a premium of $0.70 per contract, while the same number of calls were purchased at the higher February $55 strike for about $1.05 apiece. Another chunk of 2,500 puts were shed at the March $40 strike for approximately $0.33 each. All three transactions indicate bullish sentiment on Mobile Telesystems. If the trades are perhaps the work of one individual, the three-legged combination creates a clear directional play. In such a case, the investor will have paid a net $0.02 per contract for the calls by selling short the put options as described above. The long call stance positions the trader – in this example – to accrue profits if shares of MBT rally another 5.30% to surpass the effective breakeven price of $55.02 by expiration next month. We note that shares of the firm traded as high as $55.71 on October 21, 2009.
FXI – iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index Fund – Shares of the FXI, which invests assets in 25 of the largest and…
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Wild Weekly Wrap-Up - August in Retrospect
by Phil - August 29th, 2009 8:28 am
It has been a crazy few weeks!
I went back over our Long Shots list from August 9th, thinking all our picks must be doing great but really only C, with a 67% gain, is really outperforming. Long spreads on UYG and BHI are on target for nice gains but haven’t moved much. Looking at our original picks in Pharmboys Phavorites from the same week, GSK is on track and up nicely already, our AZN cover is up 45% and MRK flew up 19% already. On the riskier Biotech side, ARIA’s stock is up 16% and our spreads are all performing well, ONTY has been flat, OGXI is up 33% and the Jan $17.50s are up a rockin’ 63% with that "cautious" spread up a surprising 75% already.
SPPI had a wild ride (as we predicted with TSCM’s failed assassination attempt) and the buy/write is already up 24%, the Feb vertical is up 50% and the naked Jan put sale is up 27% and our Feb hedge play is right on track so all good there and a fine example of how following Cramer and his lackeys and and doing the opposite of what they say can be very profitable! Congrats to Pharmboy for a very fine set of picks, proving once again that there is room for research and fundamentals - not a single loser in the bunch in a choppy market! It was very timely as I had mentioned just that week in my interview with AOL Finance that XLV was my favorite sector and our IHI pick of 8/10 is up 28% on the naked Feb $45 put sale while the Feb $45 calls have already jumped 16%. It was a great call as IHI outperformed XLV and all our major indexes.
So our energy service pick (BHI) and overall financial pick (UYG) have not done much in 3 weeks and those were our leading sectors into my call to cash out our exposed long calls on Aug 13th, ahead of expirations. The Dow was at 9,400 on that day and now, a bit more than 2 weeks later, we’ve gained another 144 points but to listen to the MSM, you would think you are missing the rally of the century the past couple of weeks. This is one of the reasons I’ve gotten a bit more cynical about the rally - there is so much hype and so little actual progress, something must be wrong.
Back on Thursday, Aug 6th,…
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Ebay on the options auction block
by Andrew Wilkinson - March 13th, 2009 6:45 pm
Today’s tickers: EBAY, HUM, EEM, FXI, C, XLV, GM & LVS
EBAY Ebay Inc. – With its shares struggling to regain breakeven territory today and down 2% at $11.89, a large buyer of protective put options has emerged scooping up 20,000 contracts guaranteeing selling rights should the shares slip to $7.50 by January 2010 expiration. The investor paid a 67 cent premium to for 20,000 options potentially covering 2 million shares valued at almost $24 million at its current share price.
HUM Humana, Inc. – The health benefits company has become a hot-bed for options activity today, and its shares have jumped 10% to $25.30 in response to news of a potential buy-out situation fresh from the rumor-mill. Although little information is currently available in terms of specifics, it has been reported that it would “take a behemoth of a company to acquire Humana”, as they are currently the second-largest provider of health benefits that is backed by the United States Medicare program. Investors have witnessed major acquisitions lately, such as Pfizer’s buy-out of Wyeth and the more recent Merck/Schering-Plough agreement. Thus, traders wasted no time reacting to the bullish musings surrounding Humana and options volume amassed steadily this afternoon. Calls were traded six times to every put and the frantic activity boosted call premiums and implied volatility higher. Some investors were seen banking gains by selling calls in the March contract at the now in-the-money 25 strike price, where about 5,000 sold for as much as 1.90. Further along, at the March 30 strike price, about 9,300 calls were purchased for an average premium of 60 cents. Shares would need to rally an additional 21% from the current price in order to reach the breakeven point at $30.60 by next Friday. In the April contract bullish investors were seen buying calls at the 30 and 35 strikes. Traders shelled out 1.14 for each of the 2,000 calls purchased at the April 30 and 57 cents for each of the 1,800 coveted at the April 35 strike price. It is likely that until a buyer – and more importantly a buy-out price – is announced traders will continue to trade heavily in HUM and send implied volatility even higher than the current reading at 106% up from 86% this morning. Investors have left much on the table for speculators here since the Obama budget announcement caused selling across the sector meaning that shares have…
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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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