MetLife Options Active As Company Ups Quarterly Dividend
by Option Review - April 23rd, 2013 8:06 pm
Today’s tickers: MET, ARMH & LGF
MET - MetLife, Inc. – Shares in insurance, annuities and employee benefits provider, MetLife, Inc., are popping on Tuesday after the company raised its quarterly dividend for the first time since 2007, increasing the payout to $0.275 from $0.185 a share. MET shares rallied as much as 6.9% in the early going to $38.27, the highest level in three weeks. Traders positioning for continued gains in the price of the underlying snapped up weekly call options on MetLife this morning, driving fresh interest in several striking prices. Of the weekly calls available, the Apr 26 ’13 $38.5 strike calls attracted the most volume with upwards of 1,500 contracts in play as of midday in New York. It looks like most of the $38.5 strike calls were purchased at an average premium of $0.16 apiece, thus positioning buyers to profit should shares in MET settle above the average breakeven price of $38.66. Traders also appear to be buying up calls at the Apr 26 ’13 $37.5 and $38 strikes today. Meanwhile, options players who purchased upside calls on MetLife yesterday are seeing big gains today. Traders yesterday picked up around 1,200 calls at the Apr 26 ’13 $35 strike for an average premium of $0.86 each, and purchased around 1,600 calls at the higher $36 strike for an average premium of $0.26 apiece. These contracts today tout price tags of $3.10 and $2.09 each, respectively, as of the time of this writing, resulting in substantial overnight gains.
ARMH - ARM Holdings Plc – Bullish activity in options on British semiconductor intellectual property company, ARM Holdings, looks for shares in the name to extend gains in the near term. The stock is up 13% at $45.50, the highest level in more than a decade, after the company reported first-quarter sales that beat analyst expectations ahead of the opening bell this morning. Traders anticipating further gains in the stock price during the next couple of months picked up around 570 calls at the Jun $45…
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Blackberry Bears Bulk Up On Long-Dated RIMM Put Options
by Option Review - May 9th, 2011 4:02 pm
Today’s tickers: RIMM, MBI, HRB & MET
RIMM - Research in Motion, Ltd. – Investors taking a long-term bearish stance on the Blackberry maker initiated put butterfly spreads on the stock today, which yield maximum benefits in the event that the stock is trading well beneath its current 52-week low by expiration in January 2012. Shares in the Ontario, Canada-based company fell as much as 2.8% during the session to touch down at an intraday low of $44.71. A number of analysts lowered their share price targets on RIMM in recent days as rival Apple continues to encroach on the company’s share of the smartphone market. Butterfly spreads on the stock suggest some options players expect RIMM’s losing streak to continue into next year. Investors purchased around 3,500 puts at the January 2012 $40 strike for an average premium of $3.77 each, sold 7,000 puts at the January 2012 $37.5 strike at an average premium of $2.83, and picked up 3,500 puts at the January 2012 $35 strike for an average premium of $2.10 apiece. Net premium paid to initiate the put ‘fly amounts to just $0.21 per contract. The parameters of the strategy imply an average breakeven share price of $39.79. Maximum potential profits of $2.29 per contract are available on the spread should shares in RIMM plunge 16.1% from the current price of $44.71 to settle at $37.50 at expiration in January. The strategy employed substantially reduced the overall cost of taking a long-term bearish view on the Blackberry provider. Investors long the butterfly spread paid an average of just $0.21 per contract, but could make up to $2.29 per contract if shares behave as they anticipate. The reward-to-risk ratio is a sweet 10.9-to-1 on this strategy. Options implied volatility on RIMM is up 7.4% as of 12:10pm in New York to stand at 46.35%.…
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Barrage of Bearish Plays Befall Airgas, Inc.
by Option Review - May 19th, 2010 4:24 pm
Today’s tickers: ARG, QSFT, VTR, MET, SPWRA, USO, JPM, BMY, ADI & EXPE
ARG – Airgas, Inc. – Options investors initiated diverse bearish strategies on the distributor of industrial, medical and specialty gases this afternoon with shares of the underlying stock lower by 1.75% to $61.73 as of 3:15 pm (ET). Pessimistic players are likely wary of potential sharp share price erosion should Air Products & Chemicals Inc., the industrial gases maker forging a hostile takeover of Airgas in a proposed $5.1 billion bid for the company, fail to ultimately close the deal. Maybe bearish options investors are taking a cue from Paul Huck, CFO at Air Products & Chemicals, who yesterday stated, “there is a large drop in the stock price awaiting this, should Air Products go away” because “If we go away, who else is going to show up and pay this?” Airgas’s share price, which is up roughly 39% since Air Products’ offer went public ahead of February 5, 2010, would likely come crashing down if for some reason Air Products walks away given the lack of other serious competing offers for ARG at this time. Bearish traders bracing for potential share price hemorrhaging purchased a debit put spread and sold calls in the July contract and enacted a ratio bearish risk reversal in the October contract. One investor purchased 2,925 puts at the July $55 strike for a premium of $1.50 each, and sold the same number of puts at the lower July $50 strike for $0.65 apiece. Net premium paid for the spread amounts to $0.85 per contract, thus yielding maximum potential profits of $4.15 each if Airgas shares decline 19% to breach the $50.00 level by expiration day. The sale of 5,000 calls at the July $65 strike for an average premium of $1.05 each may or may not be the work of the same investor. Open interest of 19,000+ calls at the July $65 strike implies the call seller could be closing out a previously established long stance on the stock. Otherwise, the responsible party expects to keep the $1.05 premium per contract received on the sale as long as shares of the underlying stock do not exceed $65.00 ahead of July expiration. Finally, one pessimistic individual populating the October contract sold 5,000 calls at the October $70 strike for a premium of $1.28 each in order to buy twice as many puts…
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Weekly Wrap Up – Cash Out Edition
by phil - March 21st, 2010 5:20 pm
How did I reach my breaking point on Friday?
Well, I haven’t been happy about the action for the whole month of March and this week was simply the last straw, where I feel the risk of being long now outweighs the likely rewards. Even all the bullish analysts in 12 of 13 of our beloved IBanks are "only" projecting the S&P to gain another 7.5% for the year. That’s not even 1% a month so excuse me if I decide it’s time to take a 7th inning stretch after we’re already up 70% of 77.5% projected over 2 years. As I said when reviewing our Buy List, where we are closing out 22 of 37 stocks – you just aren’t supposed to make an average of 28% with 64 winners on 66 picks in 6 weeks – it gets to a point where it’s just foolish not to cash out and take a rest.
Make sure you check out our latest round of Disaster Hedges as well, "5 Plays that Make 500% if the Market Falls" is a good way to keep your toes in the water! In last Weekend’s Wrap-Up I was "Still Trying to Get Bullish" and I was wrestling with killing the Buy List then - doing the full review this week is what killed it for me because - if I go over the fundamentals of 37 of my favorite stocks and can’t see more than 15 plays I’m enthusiastic about keeping – then it’s a good bet I’m not going to be too wild about the rest of the market either.
If I were a real bear, this would be great and I’d just be running around yelling SELLSELLSELL but I am, believe it or not, a generally bullish guy who prefers to play an up market but I am also realistic enough not to fall so in love with my positions or bullish premise that I don’t know when it’s time to give things a rest. We haven’t had a proper pullback, we haven’t had good volume to the upside (Barron’s raised that concern this weekend) and we haven’t addressed many, many problems that are still out there.
Monday Morning – Moody’s Makes More Negative Noises
Moody’s got us off to a fun start on Monday morning, saying the US and UK are "substantially" closer to losing their AAA credit ratings as the cost of servicing their debt rose – a statement…
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Stress-Free Investing In Stress-Tested Banks
by phil - May 8th, 2009 7:08 am
Finally the official results are in!
Oddly enough, it was MUCH worse than the original indication that started this leg of our rally when we were told that every bank passed the stress test but the results were skillfully leaked in dribs and drabs interspersed with rumors that things were much worse in such a way that there is a general sense of relief that "only" $75BBn of additional capital must be raised and almost half of that by Bank of America, where $34Bn represents just 2% of their assets (although it is 40% of their current market cap).
While that level of dillution will keep us out of BAC for now, there's no reason to not invest in C, who "only" need $5.5Bn against their $2Tn in assets although that is still 25% of their current market cap. For the banks that do need capital, they have until June 8th to present a plan for raising it and until November 9th to implement the plan, which must maintain the target capital ratios through December 2010 after which we can assume they will again be allowed to run wild. The banks are all coming up with various schemes to raise cash but the ones on the left need none at all.
Rather than go into a huge explanation about each pick, I'll just say that I'm favoring banks that I feel have room to run and have not already been overbought. I discussed with members yesterday that it is ridiculous to assume that banks will get back to their 2007 levels as those earnings came under unique and ideal market conditions which are not likely to be repeated in the next decade so I was disgusted with Cramers BUYBUYBUY rant on the banks last night and I'm looking for a far more conservative play and we will be shorting some of the high flyers as Cramer herds his sheeple into overvalued positions.
![[Commentary]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-DP568_oj_rou_E_20090504185544.jpg)
We got out of our bullish bank plays this week and our $100K Hedged Virtual Portfolio, which was focused on financials in round 1, made huge gains and we (contrary to Cramer's advice) took them off the table. Now that we have FACTS, we can reinvest with more confidence. I am not advocating jumping into all of these…
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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.