Some less actively traded names seeing bullish order flow: St. Joe Company (JOE), Lihir Gold Limited (LIHR), Zoran (ZRAN). Bearish order flow: Investco (IVZ), Marriott (MAR), and Amphenol (APH). Post Earnings Activity: Marvell Technology (MRVL), Big Lots (BIG). Pre-Earnings Activity: Kroger (KR). Ex-Div Activity: Banco Bradesco (BBD), Public Service Enterprises (PEG), Frontier Communications (FTR).

*Scanning all single-stocks subject to 2500 contracts minimum call or put volume

PowerShares QQQ (QQQQ) Dec 44 put is today’s most actively traded contract. After touching a new 52-week high of $44.73, shares have given up early gains, now down 7 cents to $43.82. 88,560 Dec 44 puts traded, with some players paying 48 cents in morning trading, and also buying Dec 43 puts at 24 cents. Nice timing because the 44s are now bid at 88 cents and the 43s have almost doubled. Implied volatility in the Qs, as reflected in the QQV index, is up to 21.39 and well off session lows of 19.27.

Follow up on JAVA. From Reuters. “The New York Post article is completely untrue,” said Deborah Hellinger, a spokeswoman for Oracle, the world’s No. 2 business software maker. Shares of Sun had risen as much as 6 percent in early Nasdaq trading following the New York Post report. The stock retreated to $8.38 by late morning, still up about 2 percent — Link to Story.

Sun Micro (JAVA) is up 18 cents to $8.41 after the NY Post reported Oracle might create a separate entity to house JAVA’s MySQL database (the report is being refuted by Oracle spokesperson.) JAVA shares moved higher in pre-market action and now options volume is running 2X the average daily, with 61K contracts traded. 65 percent of the volume hitting on the put side of the options chain. The top trades are 12.8K Dec 8 puts at 15 cents and 9548 Apr 9 puts at 85 cents, both look like put sellers — closing the Dec 8s, but opening April 9s. Another 5,300 Jan 7.5 puts were also sold, probably closing. Meanwhile, another investor bought 1,000 Jan 7.5 calls while selling 4,000 Jan10 $9 calls, which looks like a 1X4 call ratio spread.

Alcon (ACL) had a big break out to a new 52-week high of $160 on Wednesday which was accompanied by active bullish spreading across the January and Feb $160 through $180 strikes on unsubstantiated talk Novartis (NVS) might bid for the company. Shares are pushing back up to the $160 level again this morning after FTN Midwest analysts said that such a deal is possible — Briefing. Options action is again bullish. Notable trade was the purchase of 4,000 January 2011 calls with a $180 strike at the $5.80 asking price. Bullish activity and increasing call open interest have been building in the Swiss medical device maker for the past few weeks.

iShares Japan Fund (EWJ) is up 8 cents to $10.07 and one player buys EWJ Mar 11 calls at 14 cents, 14000X. 19K now traded vs. 923 in open interest. Japan’s Nikkei closed up .5 percent to 10,022 and recaptured the 10K mark for the first time since Oct 30. The Nikkei has not traded above 11K since October 2008.

The rally in Rambus (RMBS) continues. Shares added 8.9 percent yesterday and showed relative strength late in the day, even as the broader market came under fire during the final hour. Today, shares are up another $1.32 to $21.56 and touched a new 52-week high on news Samsung will begin offering a 1 Gigabit XDR DRAM memory device and broaden the use of XDR technology for gaming, electronics, and computing. XDR DRAM is a component of Rambus’s XDR Memory architecture and, according to BWS Financial analysts, the news is positive for RMBS because “momentum could build in the stock because of the potential revenue growth the co could realize in the long-term”. Options are actively traded as well, with 11K calls and 830 puts traded so far. Jan10 17.5s leading the flow.