Options Recap — 07/31/2012

The month of July is ending without many fireworks. The past two days have been characterized by low volume and rangebound trading. The tone still has a wait-and-see feel ahead of Central Bank meetings Wednesday (Fed) and Thursday (ECB and Bank of England). The domestic economic news failed to stir much enthusiasm after a report released early showed June Personal Spending unchanged. Yet, later, the Conference Board’s Consumer Sentiment Index showed a surprise uptick to 65.9 in July, from 62.7 last month and better than the 61.0 that was expected. Chicago PMI, which is often a harbinger for the more widely watched ISM (due tomorrow), was also better-than-expected. It rose to 53.7 this month, from 52.9 and well above the 52 that was expected. Yet, crude oil is down $1.87 to $87.91, gold lost $4.7 to $1619.3 an ounce and European equity markets finished broadly lower, even as the euro ticked up .4 percent to 1.2312 against the buck. Trading is cautious on Wall Street as well, but in contrast to the situation one-year ago (during the market meltdown into the Aug 8 capitulation low), trading is orderly and without much volatility. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 34 points. The NASDAQ is flat.

Heading into the final hour, overall options volumes are relatively light for a second day. 6 million calls and 4.5 million puts traded across all the exchanges. Some ex-dividend activity in Pfizer (PFE) is responsible for about 700,000 contracts, or nearly 12 percent, of the day’s call volume. Earnings news continues to drive a lot of the flow (try symbol @earnings in Flow Monitor). US Steel (X), Dendreon (DNDN), Cirrus Logic (CRUS), and Coach (COH) are among the names seeing high post-earnings volumes. Pre-earnings action is being seen in AIG, Green Mountain Coffee (GMCR), and Huntsman (HUN). Facebook (FB) saw bearish spread trading early before falling to new lows. OCZ continues to see a flurry of activity on M&A speculation. Yet, it seems that many players have already closed the books for the month and now look towards August. CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) is ticking higher for a second day, up .61 to 18.64, ahead of three days chock full of event risk – including Central Bank meetings, a busy earnings calendar, and key economic data concluding with monthly jobs data Friday.

Notable Flow
EA – Bullish flow detected in Electronic Arts Inc with 10522 calls trading, or 4x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $11.08 (-0.15) with ATMIV lifting by 3.07 point and 50% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 14:21

FRX – Bullish flow detected in Forest Laboratories Inc with 6034 calls trading, or 8x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $33.63 (-0.2) with ATMIV lifting by 1.08 point and 91% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 14:01

RSH – Bullish flow detected in RadioShack Corp with 5620 calls trading, or 2x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $2.721 (0.181) with ATMIV lifting by 5.65 point and 60% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 12:21

High options volume is being seen in PFE, X, AMRN, COH, DNDN, MMR, CBI, AIG, VLO, HLF

Movers
Symbol Last Change %Change StdDevs
AH 13.58 +3.57 +35.7% 11.23
RLD 9.25 -3.35 -26.6% 12.16 Post-Earnings
AVID 9.50 +1.93 +25.5% 6.98 Post-Earnings
CRUS 36.99 +7.15 +24.0% 6.81 Post-Earnings
DNDN 4.79 -1.40 -22.6% 6.93 Post-Earnings
LOGM 19.04 -5.35 -21.9% 3.43
ZLTQ 5.27 +0.92 +21.1% 4.76 Post-Earnings
GAGA 3.98 +0.68 +20.6% 4.17
INOD 3.99 +0.65 +19.5% 2.14
RTEC 10.07 +1.64 +19.5% 9.71 Post-Earnings

Shakers (Implied volatility Movers)
Symbol IV[30d] IVChg IVChg% SkewAdjChg Last Change
HLF 41.9% -36.2 -46.4% -34.4 $54.97 +3.28 Post-Earnings
ACTG 69.1% +20.9 +43.5% +16.6 $28.22 -3.28
CVLT 49.3% -31.1 -38.7% -20.2 $49.23 +3.85 Post-Earnings
CRUS 53.5% -30.7 -36.5% -25.6 $37.03 +7.19 Post-Earnings
CIE 67.8% -36.0 -34.6% -34.8 $25.68 +1.53 Post-Earnings
GT 42.4% -18.9 -30.8% -13.6 $11.50 +1.13 Post-Earnings
AMLP 10.3% -4.4 -30.1% -4.4 $16.49 +0.03
ETP 12.9% -5.2 -28.6% -5.3 $45.87 -0.02
HOLX 35.8% -13.5 -27.4% -12.5 $18.74 +0.48 Post-Earnings
STX 41.7% -15.1 -26.6% -14.8 $30.33 -0.10 Post-Earnings

52-Week Highs
100 new highs: ABT ACC ACXM AEP AMLN AMTG AOL ARI ARIA ARR ARRY ASR AUXL BCE BGS CAB CCI CG CGI CHL CHTR CMS CNI COT COV CRUS CSJ DLX DORM DVA EGHT EHTH EIX EMB ETR EXR FAF FE FNV FRME GEVA GLP GRFS GY HDV HEP HW ISBC KCAP KO LAD LF LQD MDC MDSO MED MLNX MMP MO MPC NCT NI NVO OILT PCY PFE PGF PHB PM PMT POR PPS PRFT PSX REM S SBAC SBS SCG SIM SNAK SNY SSS STC SWKS T TFM TFX TRP TV TWO UL UNP USNA VTR WIBC WMC XEL XLP XLU

52-week Lows
53 new lows: ACLS ACTG ACUR ANAD AONE APEI AVX BIOL BLDP CAS CAST CBAK CECO CPLA CRR DM DNDN DRWI EA ESI EXPR FB GNK HHS HSII HUM INFN ISS IVC JKS JOBS JST KID LDK LOGM MEA MERC MKTS MPO OTEX REDF RFP SN SORL STP TAN TSL TWGP TXCC UDRL USMO YGE ZNGA

Top Equity Blocks
4.00m VOD 28.91 -0.10 -0.3% 11:45:20
3.00m XLF 14.67 -0.06 -0.4% 12:03:40
1.54m EEM 39.28 -0.02 -0.1% 14:12:29 – Burst
1.52m EEM 39.27 -0.03 -0.1% 14:26:26 – Burst
1.50m NOK 2.39 +0.22 +10.1% 12:23:21
1.50m QQQ 64.83 +0.01 +0.0% 12:05:48
1.50m SPY 138.47 -0.21 -0.2% 12:02:33
1.24m RFMD 3.86 +0.25 +6.9% 11:19:01 – Burst
1.21m DM 5.00 11:35:39
1.10m ACAS 9.89 +0.04 +0.4% 12:18:22

Tags: featured, market update, Sentiment

Category: Market Update