BP Options Abuzz Ahead of News Conference
by Option Review - January 14th, 2011 4:26 pm
Today’s tickers: BP, WFT, ITT, AMR, OLN, VRGY & NANO
BP - BP PLC – Options volume, options implied volatility and the value of shares in BP are on the rise ahead of a press conference in which the oil company will reportedly shed light on a possible deal with the Russian state-controlled oil company, Rosneft. Volume in options traded on BP is fast approaching 270,000 in the final 30 minutes of the session, with shares in the name having rallied as much as 4.1% to touch an intraday- and more than 6-month high of $49.50. The overall reading of options implied volatility on the stock continues to climb as well, currently standing 30.1% higher on the session at 30.16% as of 2:55pm. Investors populating BP options are trading call options on the stock more than 2.2 times for each single put option in action. Trading traffic in calls is heaviest at the January $50 strike where more than 18,600 contracts have changed hands. Investors were also seen buying higher-strike calls in the name, with 12,500 calls exchanged at the January $52.5 strike on open interest of just 3,834 lots. The majority of these call options traded on the ask for an average premium of $0.18 each. Bullishness spread to the higher January $55 strike where more than 4,500 calls were picked up at an average premium of $0.05 a-pop. Similar buying patterns were observed in February contract calls, albeit at lower volume. Meanwhile, put options expiring at the end of next week received a good deal of traffic as well. More than 26,500 puts changed hands at the January $47 strike, versus previously existing open interest of just 4,401 contracts. Investors appear to be buying the puts, perhaps to lock in gains, hedge a long position in the underlying shares, or to speculate on a near-term pullback in the price of the underlying. Upwards of 13,100 puts were bought and sold in roughly equal numbers at the closer-to-the-money January $48 strike ahead of the closing bell.…
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Mega Earnings Monday – 1,000 Reports This Week!
by phil - April 26th, 2010 8:21 am
What a crazy week this is going to be!
Pre-Market we're hearing from BLK, CAT (are we building stuff?), EXP, HTZ, HUM, LO, TUES and TZOO and later we will hear from BSX, CHH, OLN, RSH, RCII, TXN (major) and my "friendbuddypal" Cramer's TSCM (if they are not delayed). Revenues at The Street have crept back up this year in a recovery that pretty much mirrors the market. The company does pay a nice 2.6% dividend, which works out to a nice $200,000 bonus on Jimmy's 2.1M shares (6.7% of the company) so you know that bonus will be a priority for the company. Cramer was BUYBUYBUYing his own stock at $2.41 in January but sadly they have no options to hedge… They might make a nice pick-up after earnings if they disappoint and head back to $3 or less.
I'm full of useful information on hundreds of stocks right now because I've been researching our new Buy List but I'm not pleased with what I've been seeing so far and this week's tidal wave of earnings, with 1,000 companies reporting means we're in no hurry to dip our toes in the water. I told Members this morning I should probably be working on a Sell List, as it's much easier to find companies I want to short than ones I want to buy. Even in the Weekly Wrap-Up, we featured a 1,900% downside hedge on the Russell to offset the 566% plays and other bullish plays we've begun to reluctantly take, just so we don't feel too silly in this runaway market.
If you have never watched Jim Cramer discussing the sleazy, manipulative ways he used to game the markets – you really must take 10 minutes and watch this video, where Jim explains how any immoral bastard with $10M can yank the entire futures market around at will. He prefaces one of his favorite strategies with "this is blatantly illegal but.. I think it's really important… these are things you MUST do on a day like today and if you are not doing it, maybe you shouldn't be in the game." Are you playing the game or are you being played?
The biggest game ever played may be unwinding as we speak. Bloomberg reports that foreign-exchange profits from carry trades are disappearing as differences in central…
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Monday Markets – Is Momentum Shifting?
by phil - October 26th, 2009 8:29 am
We're still trying to get bullish, really we are…
Yes we are reluctantly bullish and only technically bullish at that. All we are asking of the markets is for them to take out our very simple levels and hold them for more than a day or two. Those levels are (and have been since early September): Dow 10,087, S&P 1,096, Nasdaq 2,173, NYSE 7,204 and Russell 623. These are, according to the 5% rule, the levels we need to hold in order to establish a floor in the markets that justifies setting higher upside targets. If they cannot be crossed, then these REMAIN our upside range targets and we need to start seriously considering the possibility that we may still get a pullback to Dow 9,650, S&P 1,020, Nas 2,075, NYSE 6,900 and Russell 575.
As I mentioned last week (and noted on David Fry's IWM chart), the Russell was the first to fail our 623 mark and will be our canary in the coal mine as they test 595, which is the 50 dma. A failure there and the markets have little support all the way down to our June highs, our original breakout levels of Dow 8,650 and other levels you don't even want to think about on a Monday.
$2.66 is another level we don't want to think about. That's the average price of regular gasoline this weekend. Despite 10% lower demand than last year when December gasoline averaged $1.66 a gallon. What's a dollar a gallon between friends right?
Well, actually since US consumers use 63M barrels of gas each week, and a barrel happens to be 42 gallons, it happens to be about $10.5Bn a month taken our of consumer's pockets. That's cash, after-tax money – gone! Money they won't be able to give to all those nice Russell companies for Christmas this year. Remember how much that $160Bn stimulus helped the economy last year? How much do you think a $120Bn mugging hurts the economy this year?
The timing couldn't be worse – last year, gas prices flew down and helped people make it to the mall for Christmas, this year already – as we can see from Amazon's great quarter, many people will be skipping the malls and buying on-line. With 10% of the workforce…
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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. She manages the site