Financial Select Sector (XLF) $20.83 -0.57%
financial sector ETF starting the day with heavy volume and a bearish bias. Spot relatively flat, near $20.89 and August downside puts are in demand, with a very large 1×2 ratio spread trading at 10:15 on the Amex. In this trade a customer bought 80,000 August 19 Puts 49 cents while selling 80,000 Aug 17 puts for 22cents- a 5cent net debit to the customer, who will see a large gain if the ETF sells off but remains above the $17 strike through Aug expiry. 52wk low in XLF was set ten days ago, at 16.77, and this trader appears to believe that level will provide support.
Category: All ETFs
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About the Author (Author Profile)
Henry Schwartz is the president of Trade Alert LLC, a provider of real-time options analysis tools to leading Wall Street firms. His systems analyze hundreds of thousands of transactions per second to help professionals identify and interpret market activity in real time, supporting informed trading decisions and intelligent idea generation. He has held institutional trading and management roles with Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Salomon Brothers and the Hull Group, and made markets on the CBOE and AMEX floors in the US, and EUREX and MONEP overseas. Prior to founding Trade Alert, he led the electronic market-making group at Bank of America coincident with the launch of the International Securities Exchange. He received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of California, San Diego and his MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business.
