Shares in Kansas City Southern (Ticker: KSU) are getting railroaded today after the company reported fourth-quarter profit and revenue below analyst estimates. The stock dropped as much as 21% during the first half of the trading session to a near 52-week low of $92.50. Buyers appear to have aggressively stepped in, driving the shares back to up $101.60 as of the time of this writing.
Traders who snapped up puts on the stock near the open when the price of the underlying was near the worst levels of the session have seen the value of those contracts get slammed with stock well off its lows. It looks like traders stepped in to buy around 300 of the Feb $85 strike puts at an average premium of $1.15 apiece in the early going. At last check, these contracts are changing hands at just $0.30 each as of 12:30 p.m. EST, a near 75% decline in value in just a few hours time. Similarly, around 165 of the Feb $90 strike puts were purchased near the open for an average premium of $1.97 apiece. The $90 puts are currently changing hands at $0.60 per contract.
Chart – Intraday rebound in shares of Kansas City Southern
