Bulls Bulk Up on US Oil Fund Call Options
by Option Review - January 28th, 2011 4:28 pm
Today’s tickers: USO, MWW, AMCC & CLDX
USO - United States Oil Fund, LP – Crude oil rose Friday with traders finding more than a few excuses to support chasing the United States Oil Fund higher by as much as 4.75% to an intraday high of $37.64. The exchange traded security is meant to broadly track the price of oil and had fallen sharply at the outset of the week after OPEC’s leading producer, Saudi Arabia hinted strongly that it would accommodate rising demand with an increase in supply. Since then investors drove crude oil prices down almost $7 per barrel towards $85 leading some to possibly think that the decline might leave its price bank in the middle of a price range that Saudi and other cartel members would be content with. Friday’s third-quarter GDP report was restrained by inventories, without which the economy might have grown at a breakneck 7.1% pace for the fastest since 1984. Rising oil prices were also inspired by further unrest in the Middle East with headlines over the house arrest of an Egyptian government opponent and a clampdown on domestic Internet usage encouraging call option buying on the USO. Bullish players are binging on call options across several expiries today to support their view that USO shares will continue to rally. In options expiring next week, a whopping 20,500 calls changed hands at the February $38 strike on open interest of just 2,424 contracts. More than 15,150 of the calls were purchased for an average premium of $0.22 apiece. Similar buying patterns were seen in March contract calls. Oil-optimists even looked up to the April $44 strike to take ownership of some 2,100 calls for an average premium of $0.18 a-pop. More than 170,000 options have traded on the USO thus far today and the massive upswing in demand for the contracts helped lift the fund’s overall reading of options implied volatility 12.7% to 29.88% by 12:20pm in New York. Trading in USO calls is currently outpacing that of puts by roughly 5.3 contracts to 1.…