WhatsTrading.com Options Recap — 08/03/2012

Stocks rallied and the S&P 500 is up 27.13 to 1392.13 heading into the final hour of trading Friday. The S&P is at one-month highs and players are watching the day’s highs of 1394.16 to see if buy stops above session highs can be busted — possibly set the table for a move towards 1,400 before the weekend. The S&P has not seen 1,400 since early-May.

Jobs reports helped set the stage for the morning advance after the headline number showed a 163,000 increase in payrolls in July and much better than the 100,000 that was expected. The rest of the report wasn’t very bullish (unenjoyment rate at 8.3 percent and hourly earnings up just .1 percent). Yet, Spain’s IBEX surged 5.6 percent to pace an advance across European equity markets and erased yesterday’s 5 percent skid on talk Span is ready to make an official rescue request. Crude prices are also bubbly, gaining $4.23 to $91.36 per barrel. Gold gained $16.8 to $1607.5. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 228 points. The NASDAQ surged 63.5 points.

In options action Friday, we’ve seen some large blocks of calls on some of the exchange-traded funds that seem to reflect expectations for further market gains in the months ahead. SPDR Technology (XLK), SPDR Industrials (XLI), and iShares Emerging Markets Fund (EEM) were among the names seeing high call volume. Cisco (CSCO) and Microsoft (MSFT) upside calls are also seeing interest. The expiring Weekly 6150 puts and 620 puts on Apple (AAPL) are among the most actives. The expiring Weekly options on Facebook (FB) are also seeing a flurry of activity as the stock rebounds from recent losses. Overall, trading is very active with 7.3 million calls and 6.2 million puts traded across the exchanges so far. VIX is off 1.41 to 16.16 and probing recent range lows ahead of a very light economic calendar next week. The next major economic stat is possibly Retail Sales on Aug 14. The pace of earnings releases slows next week as well. There’s a bit less event risk in the immediate future and, as a result, VIX is down 14.6 percent so far in August.

Have a great weekend and thanks for visiting WhatsTrading.com.

Notable Flow
RRD – Bullish flow detected in RR Donnelley and Sons Company with 5021 calls trading, or 4x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $12.7 (0.2) with ATMIV lifting by 2.85 point and 68% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 14:41

MFC – Bullish flow detected in Manulife Financial Corporation with 2649 calls trading, or 11x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $10.78 (0.5) with ATMIV lifting by 1.03 point and 71% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 13:01

GNK – Bullish flow detected in Genco Shipping and Trading Limited with 2682 calls trading, or 6x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $3.44 (0.44) with ATMIV lifting by 3.12 point and 51% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 12:41

High options volume is being seen in FB, CNX, KCG, CSCO, LNKD, XLK, VOD, AIG, MCP, IPG

Movers
Symbol Last Change %Change StdDevs
KCG 4.10 +1.52 +58.9% 2.52
NILE 32.25 +8.50 +35.8% 10.80 Post-Earnings
ZIP 7.09 -3.54 -33.3% 12.22 Post-Earnings
MCP 11.59 -4.48 -27.9% 9.95
MXL 5.80 +1.21 +26.4% 7.50 Post-Earnings
MELI 83.50 +16.98 +25.5% 8.18 Post-Earnings
GNK 3.73 +0.73 +24.3% 2.60
ZAGG 8.44 -2.26 -21.1% 10.84 Post-Earnings
SCOR 12.27 -3.18 -20.6% 12.21 Post-Earnings
UDRL 4.50 +0.75 +20.0% 5.20

Shakers (Implied volatility Movers)
Symbol IV[30d] IVChg IVChg% SkewAdjChg Last Change
IPG 81.1% +41.2 +103.4% +35.7 $10.83 +1.15
PBI 35.4% -38.1 -51.8% -29.2 $13.89 +0.95 Post-Earnings
NILE 60.5% -57.2 -48.6% -57.6 $32.21 +8.46 Post-Earnings
LNKD 47.4% -42.7 -47.4% -35.9 $107.94 +14.43 Post-Earnings
OPEN 48.9% -40.4 -45.3% -34.5 $40.08 +5.93 Post-Earnings
MELI 39.5% -28.2 -41.7% -16.1 $83.50 +16.98 Post-Earnings
SYNA 38.7% -27.0 -41.1% -21.8 $28.50 +3.06 Post-Earnings
SKUL 56.9% -33.1 -36.8% -35.2 $14.51 +0.66 Post-Earnings
VIAB 19.9% -9.8 -33.2% -7.5 $47.41 +1.58
ROVI 52.8% -25.7 -32.7% -23.9 $14.57 +1.24 Post-Earnings

52-Week Highs
136 new highs: .VSTRP ABT ACAS AEE AIRM ALL AOL ASPS AWH AWK BAM BANR BBCN BCE BRK/B BTI BXP CAB CBE CBL CBS CHTR CLNY CMCSA CMCSK CNI CORN COT COV CRBC CRUS CTAS CTGX CVA DK DKS DTN DTV ECPG EGHT EXP EXPE FEIC FL FLS FRME G GGP GIL GPS GPX HDB HFC HGR HNZ HW ICF IHG IT JAH JRN KALU KFT LBTYA LPS LSE MFLX MIC MITT MLNX MON MPC MRC MTN NCR NCT NEU NOC NRGM NVO NVS NWSA OCN PCY PGX PHB PKG PM PMT PRAA PSA PWR RAI REG RMD ROL RPAI RPT RTHYL SBAC SEMG SHEN SHW SKT SNY SPG SPSC SSS SSYS STC STE STWD STZ SWI SXL TGT TJX TKC TLLP TRP TSO TU TWC TWX UA UL UN UNP UTHR VASC VOD VTR VYM WIBC WRI WWW

52-week Lows
60 new lows: ACTV AERL ANAD ARX AUO BODY CACH CALD CCM CECO CUTR DEER DRWI DXD EDMC EGI ENERQ ENVI FSG HNT IXYS JKS JST LINC MBLX MCHX MCP MERC MKTS MM MRCY MTG MTSN NFLX NRP NTLS PGNX PWAV REDF RSW SCOR SDOW SDS SHZ SORL SPTN SPXS SPXU SYX TAOM TSL TSTC ULBI UTI UVXY VC VIXY VXX ZIP ZNGA

Top Equity Blocks
3.69m GNW 4.29 +0.17 +4.1% 10:58:13 – Burst
2.29m CMVT 5.33 +0.09 +1.7% 10:49:21
2.05m SPY 139.40 +2.50 +1.8% 10:49:22 – Average Price Trade
2.00m XLF 14.74 +0.34 +2.3% 10:09:25 – Derivatively Priced
1.99m EWH 17.05 +0.37 +2.2% 15:01:10 – Burst
1.98m TWX 40.97 +0.30 +0.7% 09:50:18
1.86m AOBI 0.41 +0.02 +5.1% 15:00:46 – Out of Sequence
1.85m SIRI 2.15 +0.04 +1.9% 09:55:49
1.66m MU 6.30 +0.14 +2.3% 12:20:47
1.50m SIRI 2.16 +0.05 +2.4% 12:20:00

Tags: Earnings, market update, Sentiment

Category: Market Update