Celgene Calls Active As Stock Hits All-Time High
by Option Review - December 5th, 2013 5:16 pm
CELG – Celgene Corp – Shares in Celgene rallied 3.6% on Thursday to an all-time high of $165.88 after the fourth-largest biotechnology company was raised to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ with an increased target share price of $200.00 at UBS. Options changing hands on the stock this morning suggests some traders are positioning for the price of the underlying to continue higher next week.
The most traded contracts on CELG by volume are the 13 Dec ’13 $165 strike calls, with around 2,500 calls in play against open interest of 675 contracts. Time and sales data indicates most of the $165 weekly calls were purchased at a premium of $1.99 each. Call buyers stand ready to profit at expiration next week in the event that Celgene shares top the breakeven point at $166.99. Shares in Celgene are up nearly 110% since this time last year.
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Bearish Bets On Garmin Pay Off For Some Traders As Shares Lose Footing
by Option Review - February 20th, 2013 3:04 pm
Today’s tickers: GRMN, CELG & GSK
GRMN - Garmin, Ltd. – Bearish options were changing hands on Garmin this morning after the provider of navigation devices and GPS technology reported lower-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings and provided full year 2013 guidance below the consensus estimate. Shares in Garmin fell more than 11% at the start of the session to a new 52-week low of $34.65. Put buying on the stock ahead of Garmin’s fourth-quarter report this morning generated substantial overnight profits for one or more traders today. Open interest in the Mar. $38 strike puts increased 650 contracts following Tuesday’s trading session, and a look back at time and sales data for the $38 puts indicates most of the contracts were purchased for an average premium of $1.46 each. The sharp post-earning pullback in the price of the underlying now finds the Mar. $38 strike puts changing hands at $3.65 each, or more than twice the amount traders paid for the contracts on Tuesday. Meanwhile, options traders initiating bearish positions on Garmin today looked to the Mar. $34 strike, exchanging more than 1,400 puts versus open interest of 672 contracts. It looks like most of the $34 puts were purchased for an average premium of $0.64 apiece. Put buyers may profit at expiration next month should Garmin’s shares slip another 4% to trade below the average breakeven price of $33.36, the lowest level for GRMN shares since October 2011.
CELG - Celgene Corp. – Shares in the maker of cancer drugs are up sharply on Wednesday after the company announced it will buy back $600 million in stock from an unnamed investment bank during the next three months. In June, the biotechnology company approved a $2.5 billion stock buyback program. CELG shares are up better than 2.5% on the day to stand at $103.04 as of 11:35 a.m. ET, after earlier rallying to a record-high of $103.69. Upside call buying on the stock today suggests some options traders are looking for shares in Celgene to extend gains during the next…
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2010 Outlook – A Tale of Two Economies
by phil - December 27th, 2009 6:54 am
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." – Charles Dickens, 1859
Dickens famous novel (which was originally written as a weekly series in 31 installments) depicts life in the time of the French revolution but was also a parable, meant to warn the British aristocracy that they should not ingore the parallels to the social inequities that existed at the time in England. Dickens warned the nobles that the seeds of revolution were planted through unjust acts and surely there would be a time of reaping yet to come.
It is said that the French Revolution was sparked by outrage over a statement by the Queen Mary Antoinette who, when told that the peasants had no bread to eat, supposedly replied (she never actually said this) "Qu’ils mangent de la brioche" or "Then let them eat cake." It's hard for us to imagine the impact of this statement in modern times but "peasants" were 90% of the population at the time and bread was 90% of what they ate, consuming 50% of the average family's income (people weren't silly enough to pay for housing back then – they just found a bit of land, bought some wood and nails and built their own homes). Brioche was a luxury combination of bread enriched with flour and butter so the statement "Qu’ils mangent de la brioche" implies both lack of caring and cluelessness on the part of the Queen.
The United States had what passes for a revolution between 2006 and 2008 as we threw out the Republicans and went with a Democrat-controlled government. While the Bush administration, the Republican Congress and Fox News may have been as clueless as a French Queen to the plight of the people…
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Merry Christmas Eve
by phil - December 24th, 2009 8:28 am
First of all, what are you doing here?
Why it’s Christmas Eve, Mr. Scrooge – Most global markets are having a half day so, if you are waiting for a Santa Clause rally on a half-day’s trading, you are very likely to be disappointed.
Remember Marley, who cried: "Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
Marley was a man who worked and worked until the day he died and regretted it every day after. If you don’t believe in an afterlife and you don’t believe in leaving behind the World a better place than you found it, at least find some time for yourself so people don’t call you "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!"
Those covetous old sinners in Congress passed the Health Care Bill in the Senate today with a 60-39 vote (Republican Jim Bunning did not vote against the bill but was too chicken to actually vote for it) so we can pretty much count on it moving through the House and on to Obama’s desk in the very near future. While it’s a total botch-job of a bill, at least America has taken the first civilized strep to recognizing that health care is a right and not a privilege – Tiny Tim would be very proud!
We were told by Fox that Health Care reform would destroy the universe but the market has taken the December passage of the bill very much in stride so maybe we should have just gone for it with Universal Health Care after all… Oh well, maybe next year! Meanwhile, we’ll be looking for good investing opportunities once we get a handle on the final bill but I still favor the device space (IHI, MDT, BSX, JNJ, GE, ISRG) as well as big pharma (MRK, PFE), who will be able to serve tens of millions of new customers. Hospitals (UHS, THC) should also start filling up and we always like our CELG as well as AMGN, who should also benefit from adding a population the size of England to the health care rolls right here in the USA. I’m waiting for the final bill but home health care providers (AMED,…
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Wary Wells Fargo bull adopts cautious collar approach
by Option Review - April 1st, 2009 7:02 pm
Today’s tickers: WFC, MA, S, ESRX, CREE, RIMM & CELG
WFC Wells Fargo & Co. – Shares have rallied slightly by about 1% to $14.37. Options investors were very active on the stock today, but one trade in particular caught our attention in the May contract where one investor has established a protective collar in conjunction with a large volume-sale of call options as a vehicle to fund the strategy. To initiate the collar, this trader purchased shares of the underlying stock and simultaneously purchased 42,000 puts at the May 12 strike price for a premium of 1.70. The put options serve to protect this investor should shares experience a significant decline over the course of the next two months. The sale of 42,000 calls at the May 20 strike price for 1.00 was established for a couple of reasons. First, the 1.00 premium pocketed on the sale effectively reduces the cost of the put options to just 70 cents apiece. Second, the short position at the upper strike price has effectively given this trader an exit strategy should shares rally to $20.00 by expiration. If such a rally were to occur, the shares could be called away from him at expiration and he would have reeled in gains of 39% on the $5.63 rise in the value of the underlying. Of course, if this scenario were to take place, the puts purchased would expire worthless and the net cost of 70 cents he paid out today would be lost.
MA MasterCard, Inc. Class A – The global payment solutions company is off by more than 4.5% to $159.87. MA appeared on our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner after one investor took a bullish stance on the company using options. At the May 180 strike price 10,000 calls were purchased for 5.40 apiece while at the May 200 strike 10,000 calls were sold for a premium of 1.40 per contract. The net cost of the trade amounts to 4.00 and yields a maximum potential profit for the investor of 16.0 if shares were to rally up to $200.00 by expiration next month. Shares would need to experience a rally of about 15% from the current price in order to reach the breakeven point at $184.00. MasterCard has not traded above $184.00 since October of 2008, but this investor appears to be optimistic that MA will rebound in 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.
