Options Recap — 7/18/2012

Stock market averages rallied around earnings and economic news Wednesday. A report early showed Housing Starts improving to a 760K rate in June, from 711k and better than the 743K that was expected. Attention the turned to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke at 10:00 EDT. The head of the Federal Reserve told members of Congress that he expects to see gradual economic improvement moving forward. Later in the day, the Fed’s Beige Book, which offers a qualitative assessment of economic conditions, indicated that officials saw modest or moderate economic growth throughout all districts in June and July. Neither Bernanke nor the Fed Beige Book signaled that officials are poised to unleash another round of quantitative easing. Yet, a number of widely-helds – like Intel, St. Jude Medical and Honeywell – are up on earnings news and stock market averages scored gains across the Eurozone as well. Crude oil is up 46 cents to $90 a jug on weekly inventory data, but gold gave up $15 to $1574.5 an ounce. Heading into the final hour, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is now up 88 points and 28 points from session highs. The NASDAQ added 27.8 points. CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) settled at 16.76 (unofficial) for the July expiration, but is now moving below 16 for the first time since April. VIX is off .5 to 15.98. The underlying tone of trading is bullish in the options market as well, with 7.4 million calls and 6 million puts traded across the exchanges today.

Notable Flow
MRO – Bullish flow detected in Marathon Oil Corp with 23199 calls trading, or 8x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $26.58 (0.57) with ATMIV lifting by 1.91 point and 78% of todays call premium trading offer side. Auto Content (Trade-Alert) 15:01

MDR – Bearish activity detected in McDermott International Inc with 10974 puts trading, or 50x the recent avg daily put volume in the name. Shares near $12.08 (0.29) with ATMIV lifting by 3.59 point and 57% of todays put premium trading offer side. Auto Content (Trade-Alert) 14:11

XLU – Bullish flow detected in Utilities Select Sector with 20323 calls trading, or 10x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $37.5 (0.1) with ATMIV lifting by 9.83 point and 79% of todays call premium trading offer side. Auto Content (Trade-Alert) 13:41

See all of today’s Notable Bullish and Bearish Flow with Flow Monitor (use symbol @all and then menu option 1).

High options volume is being seen in Intel (INTC), Microsoft (MSFT), and Qualcomm (QCOM)

Movers
Symbol Last Change %Change StdDevs
ROVI 10.17 -7.48 -42.4% 18.64
WHX 10.87 -5.46 -33.4% 14.64
EDU 10.01 -4.62 -31.6% 3.36
BAMM 2.55 -0.62 -19.6% 16.92
CMEDY 3.48 +0.48 +16.0% 0.45
HHS 7.80 -1.45 -15.7% 7.51
APH 59.01 +7.65 +14.9% 9.41 Post-Earnings
ATHN 89.45 +10.29 +13.0% 5.83
SSYS 58.59 +6.65 +12.8% 3.49
VMW 90.52 +10.23 +12.7% 3.56

Shakers (Implied volatility Movers)
Symbol IV[30d] IVChg IVChg% SkewAdjChg Last Change
EDU 181.7% +83.4 +84.9% N/A $10.02 -4.61
VVUS 62.3% -67.8 -52.1% -41.7 $29.14 +2.68
CHKP 30.1% -16.8 -35.8% -10.2 $49.07 +3.45 Post-Earnings
INTC 20.9% -9.4 -31.0% -6.3 $26.37 +0.99 Post-Earnings
ROVI 78.0% +18.4 +30.9% N/A $10.19 -7.46
BYI 19.3% -7.7 -28.5% -7.9 $47.48 +0.15
KFN 22.0% -8.1 -26.9% -6.6 $8.92 +0.13
SWK 25.6% -8.6 -25.3% -3.0 $62.95 +3.23 Post-Earnings
ERIC 36.8% -10.4 -22.0% -4.9 $8.77 +0.46 Post-Earnings
VPHM 78.3% +13.9 +21.7% +14.5 $23.13 +0.35

52-Week Highs
176 new highs: .HGX .UTY ABAX ABT ACC AFFY AGG AGU AIRM AMGN AMSG AN AOS APOG ARI ARRS ASML ATHN AVB AWK BBH BBHYL BDE BECN BND BOND BRK/B BTI BXS CENTA CF CFNL CL CLGX CMS CNI CNO COST CRBC CVS DEO DLX DORM DTE DVA DVY EAT EDE EDR EFX EGP ELT EPD EVER EWW FBT FCF FELE FL FRAN FRME FUN GBCI GPS GR GRFS GRU HAE HAIN HCSG HE HGR HLSS HSNI IBB INFI IOC ISBC ISIS IYH JJG JNJ KCAP KMB KVHI LBTYA LLY LNN LNT LPX LQD MAT MCK MMP MO MPC MTH NEE NEU NKTR NU NVAX OCN OHI OZRK PAA PAYX PCY PFE PFF PGF PHM PKG PMT PNM PNW PPH PRA PRXL PSB PSX PZZA QLTI RAI ROST RRMS RTN SEM SEMG SGEN SIR SNH SPB SPF SRE SSS SSYS SUI SUSQ SWX TEG THRX TLK TMH TOL TRMK TV TYL UFPI UIL UMPQ UNS USB USG VCIT VMI VPFG VR VRSK VVUS VZ WAL WEC WGO WIBC WMT WNR WPP WR WRLD WSO WTFC XBI XEL XLU XLV

52-week Lows
48 new lows: ALU AONE APWR AUO AUQ AVG AWC AXU CEL CEP CHU CTRP EDU FSG GILT GRPN GSVC HGG HMIN JCP JOBS KID LXK MAKO MKTS MM MOTR NCQ NIHD NOK NRP PGJ QRM QSII ROVI SAFM SBLK SONS SVU TAN TEA UVXY VIXY VXX VXZ WBMD WHX WYNN

Top Equity Blocks
7.50m ABB 16.01 -0.27 -1.7% 11:53:10 – Derivatively Priced
2.55m TSN 15.40 -0.05 -0.3% 12:07:36 – Burst
1.87m EEM 38.80 -0.11 -0.3% 11:43:08 – Burst
1.80m QTM 1.25 -0.02 -1.6% 12:25:32 – Burst
1.72m KID 1.60 -0.36 -18.4% 14:09:59 – Burst
1.70m XLF 14.74 -0.04 -0.3% 11:50:30 – Average Price Trade
1.70m XLF 14.77 +0.01 +0.1% 10:14:02
1.70m XLF 14.72 -0.04 -0.3% 11:50:19
1.69m XLF 14.75 -0.01 -0.1% 11:09:35
1.49m SIRI 2.11 +0.04 +1.7% 12:51:06

Trader Talk
Treasuries still hovered near session lows, though higher in price on the day, amid firmer stocks; stocks earlier had been pressured by various European worries, then managed to shrug off such concerns and firm mildly amid stronger crude oil, concentration on stronger housing data – Mr. Top Step
Bernanke says Inflation is Under Control – Bloomberg
Beige Book
Citigroup: Headlines crossing that Ackman sold entire C stake; used proceeds to buy PG – Briefing
Euro Down on Merkel Comments – Reuters
Crude up on Inventory Data. Natural as heats Up — Chart.

Tags: featured, market update, Sentiment

Category: Market Update