Options Traders Position For Rebound In Shares Of Jabil Circuit
by Option Review - March 21st, 2013 3:56 pm
Today’s tickers: JBL, HERO & YHOO
JBL - Jabil Circuit, Inc. – Shares in Jabil Circuit are down sharply on Thursday, off 4.7% at $18.57 just after midday on the East Coast, following the company’s second-quarter earnings report released after the close on Wednesday. Options activity on JBL today suggests some traders are positioning for shares in the name to rebound in the near term. The most active contracts on Jabil as measured by volume are the April $19 strike calls, with upwards of 3,000 lots in play versus open interest of 1,714 contracts. It looks like most of the calls were purchased for an average premium of $0.40 apiece, and may be profitable at expiration next month should shares in JBL rally 4.5% to settle above the average breakeven point at $19.40. The stock is down nearly 30% since this time last year, but has managed to rally 10% off a 52-week low of $16.89 set back in October.
HERO - Hero Offshore, Inc. – Trading traffic in HERO call options on Thursday indicates some traders are looking for shares in the provider of offshore drilling services to extend gains during the next few months. The stock, up more than 150% since June of 2012, trades 1.65% higher this afternoon at $7.38 as of 1:00 p.m. ET. Traders looking for the price of the underlying to push higher purchased around 3,100 calls at the May $8.0 strike for an average premium of $0.37 apiece during the first half of the session. Call buyers may profit at expiration in May in the event that HERO’s shares rally another X% over the current price of $7.37 to exceed the average breakeven point at $8.37. The May $8.0 strike calls were active on Wednesday, as well. Open interest in the $8.0 strike calls jumped to 3,528 contracts following the prior trading session, with much of the fresh interest purchased at a premium of $0.25 each. Overall volume in HERO options is greater than 5,700 contracts this afternoon, versus the stock’s…
M&A Monday – Goldman’s Golden Goose
by phil - September 27th, 2010 7:18 am
Hope springs eternal at Goldman Sachs.
This morning our favorite Banksters goosed the EU markets by upping targets on international mining operators Kazakhmys, Lonmin and BHP and that got the European markets off to a flying start out of the gate, despite the fact that UBS had just DOWNgraded the same sector on Friday. UBS said on Friday that the sector is facing difficult times concerning potential growth with government rulings on mineral leases and the proposed supertax on mining profits in Australia set to hinder metal-based stocks.
We also have a lot of M&A activity, also courtesy of GS, who are leading the resurgence this year with 225 deals to date worth $401.6Bn, accounting for about 20% of all activity going through Goldman's sticky fingers. In a sign of the times, however, GS only generated $961M in revenues as an M&A advisor as they cut a lot of discounts in order to land the top spot in dealmaking. Although outdealt by GS, MS, Rothchild, JPM and DB all made more in fees than the Uncle Lloyd show.
In a sign of the end of times, GS's London Headquarters has been taken over by lenders after the owner fell into receivership. GS's landlord, Antedon, is an offshore real estate firm that bought the building for $500M at the top of the market in 2007 and GS has locked up the building through 2026 at what seems to be not enough money to keep Antedon liquid – it would be very interesting to trace the web of deals that led to this massive default.
Meanwhile, the consortium of Irish investors that own GS's other London building are also bailing out, this action is coinciding with what Ireland's Independent says is a campaign by Wall Street Hedge Funds to short sell Irish Government Bonds. US hedge funds Groveland Capital and Corrientes Advisors are thought to have taken major positions against Irish debt. Giant €60bn asset-manager Pictet also revealed that it had earlier bet against Irish government bonds. JP Morgan is also thought to have taken a bearish position on Irish debt. The International Monetary Fund estimated that up to €3bn of Ireland's debt was being targeted by speculators through the uses of derivatives.
Monday Morning – 6 Unemployed People Per Job?
by phil - September 28th, 2009 8:26 am
The number of unemployed people per job opening has climbed to 6:
Six is a lot, as you can see from the above chart. 6 means that if you get a job, 5 people absolutely will NOT be able to get a job because you just took the last one. Notice Job Openings are still falling and people without jobs are still rising – this is not a good combination, despite how great you hear things are getting on TV. In the first 6 months of this year, there are half as many manufacturing jobs available, 17% less Government Jobs, 21% less Professional Jobs and 21% less Educational Jobs.
Call me old-fashioned but I still think you need people to work in order to have a strong economy. If we have 10% unemployment (the "official" number) and only 1 in 6 people COULD get jobs if they filled every single available opening tomorrow. That still leaves us with 8.5% unemployment. We are miles and miles away from creating jobs and that is very scary.
As I predicted in the Weekend Wrap-Up, Merkel won her election in Germany and the new "Pro-Business" coalition is making investors happy but Germany has some silly rule about balancing their budget so it will be a long time before you see the massive tax cuts that investors are salivating over. Also, one would think people would sober up and short the Euro if their plan is to start running the German printing presses in a US-styled Spendocracy but no action in the currency markets so far. I wrote some extensive commentary on the German situation in Member Chat so I won't get into it again here.
This weekend, I also posed the questions "Are Fundamentals Making a Comeback," or are we just resting before the next big push to 10,000? We’ll be keeping a very close eye on our 5% rule levels next week, especially the retrace levels from the 20% run-ups since early July: