Pandora Call Options In Play Ahead Of Earnings
by Option Review - March 5th, 2012 1:38 pm
Today’s tickers: P, AIG, EXPR & BHI
P - Pandora Media, Inc. – Shares in the provider of Internet music services are up 6.5% at $14.80 this afternoon on the heels of an upgrade to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’ at Stifel Nicolaus and leading up to Pandora’s fourth-quarter earnings release ahead of the opening bell on Tuesday morning. Options on Pandora Media, Inc. are more active than usual today as investors take positions prior to the fourth-quarter performance report. Call options are far more popular than puts, with more than nine calls changing hands on Pandora for each single put in play. Volume is heaviest at the Mar. $16 strike, where more than 7,000 calls traded against open interest of just 917 contracts. Trading in the $16 calls is mixed, but it looks like slightly more of the contracts were purchased for an average premium of $0.44 each. Call buyers may profit at expiration in the event that Pandora’s shares surge 11.1% to surpass the average breakeven price of $16.44. Bullish positioning was also seen in the Mar. $17 strike calls as traders paid an average premium of $0.17 for around 400 of the contracts. Overall options volume on Pandora is fast approaching 20,000 contracts on the day just before 1:20 p.m. in New York trade.
AIG - American International Group, Inc. – The insurance giant’s shares are off their highest levels of the session, but remain positive, up 2.2% at $30.46 as of 11:45 a.m. in New York. Shares rallied as much as 5.0% to $31.30 this morning on news AIG is selling $6 billion in shares of AIA Group Ltd. to institutional investors. The bullish move in the price of the underlying shares is a boon for traders observed snapping up weekly call options at the tail-end…
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Bearish Play Points To Possible Post-Earnings Pullback In TiVo
by Option Review - August 24th, 2011 3:10 pm
Today’s tickers: TIVO, BHI, PBR & MU
TIVO - TiVo, Inc. – Large prints in TiVo call and put options indicate one big player is prepared for shares in the provider of home entertainment technologies to extend losses following the company’s second-quarter earnings report after the close. TiVo’s shares are down 3.3% at $7.98 as of 12:30 pm in New York. It looks like the investor responsible for nearly all of the volume generated in TiVo options thus far today sold out-of-the-money calls to partially finance the purchase of a bearish put spread in the front month. The trader may be hedging a long position in the underlying shares, or could be taking an outright bearish stance on the stock in the expectation that shares will drop in the next few weeks to September expiration. TiVo, Inc. was raised to ‘Above Average’ from ‘Average’ with a share price target of $11.00 by analysts at Caris & Co. this week.
The pre-earnings options combo play involved the sale of 7,000 calls at the September $10 strike for $0.19 apiece, spread against the purchase of the same number of puts at the lower September $8.0 strike for $0.60 each, as well as the sale of 7,000 puts at the September $7.0 strike at a premium of $0.19 a-pop. Net premium paid to initiate the three-legged transaction amounts to $0.22 per contract. The trader profits in the event that TiVo’s shares decline another 2.5% from the current price of $7.98 to breach the effective breakeven point on the downside at $7.78 by expiration next month. Maximum potential profits of $0.78 per contract pad the investor’s wallet if shares in TiVo plunge 12.3% to trade below $7.00 at expiration. The sale of the call options substantially reduces premium required to place a directional…
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Monday Market Movement – Do or Dive!
by phil - January 24th, 2011 8:14 am
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Big week ahead!
$30Bn in POMO from the Fed runs headlong into earnings reports from 15 of the 30 Dow components along with MoMo darlings like VMW (tonight), BLK (tomorrow morning), POT (Thursday morning) and AMZN (Thursday night). I already sent out an Alert to Members this morning outlining our strategy and Stock World Weekly did it's usual amazing job of wrapping up last week's action and laying out the week ahead so I won't be too redundant here. The key driver for the markets continues to be the dollar, which is making more sense now as it saved the Dow and the S&P last week (50% of revenues come from overseas) but not the Russell (only 10% of revs from overseas) or the Nasdaq (30%).
The Dollar was relentlessly driven down last week, bottoming out at 78 on Friday evening, back to November lows, where they ditched the Dollar all the way down to 75.63 in early November before it broke back up and ran to 81.44 on the last day of the month. Now we're back down 4.2% from the Thanksgiving highs for the Dollar and the Dow and S&P are up 8%, which is our usual 2:1 correlation yet Uncle Rupert's Journal would have you believe that the Dollar no longer matters and that this rally is about (please sit down, PSW cannot be responsible for any beverages you are about to spit on your keyboad) – wait for it – Fundamentals!
According to the Journal: In recent weeks, for example, moves in stocks and the U.S. dollar have had little connection—a breakdown of the trend during much of 2010, when they were virtual mirror images of each other. Stocks were considered risky and would rise when investors were feeling confident, while the dollar was a haven, benefiting when investors were worried. Commodities, too, have broken away from rising and falling with risk perceptions. Now more old-fashioned concerns, like the weather, are having an impact. Corn, soybean and wheat prices jumped this month after supply estimates were cut due to dry weather in South America and floods in Australia.
Really? So the run in DBA from 22.85 in June of last year to 31.65 (38.5%)…
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Three-Legged Bearish Tactician Targets iShares Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index ETF
by Option Review - August 28th, 2010 5:04 pm
Today’s tickers: IYR, NSM, IGT, GFRE, LNC, BHI, ONNN & HPQ
IYR – iShares Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index ETF – A three-legged bearish options combination play on the IYR, an exchange-traded fund designed to provide investment results that correspond to the price and yield performance of the Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index – an index created to measure the performance of the real estate sector of the U.S. equity market, indicates one big player is bracing for a pullback in shares of the ETF through the end of 2010. Shares of the fund went the way of the market this afternoon and rallied 1.05% to $50.71 with less than one hour remaining in the trading week. The investor sold roughly 10,000 calls at the December $55 strike at an average premium of $1.35 each, purchased about 10,000 puts at the December $50 strike for an average premium of $3.65 apiece, and shed 10,000 puts at the lower December $43 strike at an average premium of $1.43 a-pop. The net cost of the pessimistic play is reduced to $0.87 per contract. The transaction could be a hedge to protect the value of a large position in IYR shares. But, if the spread represents an outright bearish bet on the ETF, the investor is poised to profit should shares dip below the average breakeven price of $49.13 by December expiration. Maximum available profits in this scenario amount to $6.13 per contract if the fund’s shares plummet 15.2% from the current price to trade below $43.00 by expiration day.
NSM – National Semiconductor Corp. – Shares in semiconductor manufacturer, National Semiconductor Corp., earlier slipped 2.05% to touch a new 52-week low of $12.41, but the stock came roaring back to life in afternoon trading, rallying as much as 3.2% to an intraday high of $13.08. The significant shifts in the price of the underlying shares inspired investors to purchase both call and put options on the stock today. Options traders may also be gravitating toward NSM options ahead of the firm’s first-quarter earnings report scheduled for September 9, 2010. Investors heartened by the turn-around in shares purchased approximately 5,800 calls at the November $13 strike for an average premium of $0.85 apiece. Call buyers make money if National Semiconductor’s shares rally another 5.9% over today’s high of $13.08 to trade above the average breakeven price of $13.85 by expiration…
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Monday Mandarin Market Meltdown
by phil - August 31st, 2009 8:17 am
The Shanghai Composite fell 6.7% this morning!
I mentioned our love of FXP (ultra-short China) in our August Market Review and the short sale of FXP puts (a bullish play) was our primary cover in the last $100KP since early August for exactly the reason we are seeing play out today. Of course China's problems were my theme on Friday and on 8/16 we warned that China's GDP wasn't real and on 8/7 we pointed out that China's 2009 growth was nothing more than an accounting trick after my August 6th article in which I pointed out that GS was desperately working to pump China up at the top (likely while they were dumping their own shares on unsuspecting suckers). Do fundamentals matter? Sure they do — evenutally. But we had to roll and DD our August FXP short puts (big winners now) as it always pays to remember the words of John Keynes: "The market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent."
We nailed the move in the Shanghai, which is now down 25% since we turned negative on it but the Hang Seng, which is much easier to manipulate as it's controlled by foreign IBanks (our beloved gang of 12), has mysteriously flatlined near their August highs, maintaining the myth of the Chinese recovery so Uncle Rupert could run his almost daily articles telling you how great the global economy is on the other side of the world, where you can't see it. Interestingly, in China he's running stories telling them how the US economy is leading the way back and in Europe he has total control of the media so whatever he wants to tell them is the truth anyway.
By the way, this is your LAST week to get Stock Market Truth with a FREE Trial Subscription to the PSW Report
Ler's see how rational the markets get as mainland China falls to it's lowest level since May and let's keep in mind that "limit down" on the Shanghai is 10% so a 6.7% drop in one day indicates that scores of companies were likely halted at 10% down. It's going to take some really big plate spinning by GS et al (already attempred by GS last night with this idiotic release calling China…
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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…
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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.