WhatsTrading.com Options Recap — 08/10/2012

Stock market averages are limping into the final hour little changed in listless action late-Friday. Disappointing Chinese export data, which showed a modest 1percent uptick for July, seemed to rekindle investor concerns about a worldwide economic slowdown. Yet, modest losses across Asia’s equity markets were followed by small and orderly declines across European equity markets. Action is relatively quiet in the commodities markets, except in the grains after corn launched to record highs in morning trading on bullish USDA crop data. December corn it $8.49/Bushel, but since dropped back down to $8.10. Crude oil is off 34 cents to $93.02 per barrel and gold edged up $2.5 to $1623 an ounce. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has traded in a 79-point range and is up near session highs. The Dow has added 8 points. The NASDAQ dropped 3.

Volume has been light throughout the week and is slowing even further ahead of the weekend. Excluding ex-dividend trading in LLY, BX, TGT and a handful of others, volume across the exchanges so far today is about 4.8 million calls and 4.4 million puts, which is only about 75 percent the normal levels. GE is seeing high volume, driven by an apparent roll of Sep and Oct calls to November. NVidia (NVDA) sees active trading, as the stock gives back post-earnings gains and heads lower Friday. Sirius (SIRI) continues to see high levels of call activity in the wake of this week’s better-than-expected profit report. JCP, FIO, and ATPG are also seeing high post-earnings volume. It’s been very quiet in the ETF options Friday. 1.4 million calls and 1.9 million puts traded on SPY, QQQ, EEM and other ETFs so far (try symbol @ETF in Flow Monitor.) Meanwhile, CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) is off .26 to 14.92 and set to close below 15 for the first time since late-March!

Have a great weekend!

Notable Flow
ATPG – Bearish activity detected in ATP Oil and Gas Corp with 26195 puts trading, or 3x the recent avg daily put volume in the name. Shares near $0.5443 (-0.7657) with ATMIV lifting by 63.66 point and 71% of todays put premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 14:11

DTV – Bullish flow detected in DIRECTV with 3540 calls trading, or 2x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $51.84 (1.34) with ATMIV lifting by 1.25 point and 81% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 13:01
PKD – Bullish flow detected in Parker Drilling Co with 3038 calls trading, or 34x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $4.7308 (0.0808) with ATMIV lifting by 2.30 point and 86% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 12:21

High options volume is being seen in LLY, JCP, GE, BX, YHOO, RIMM, TGT, NVDA, AFL, CLF

Movers
Symbol Last Change %Change StdDevs
UBNT 8.62 -6.39 -42.6% 5.75 Post-Earnings
FIO 27.42 +6.40 +30.4% 8.19 Post-Earnings
IMPV 33.35 +7.19 +27.5% 10.26 Post-Earnings
RNDY 7.69 -2.54 -24.8% 14.68 Post-Earnings
CDXS 2.40 -0.70 -22.6% 5.97 Post-Earnings
EPAY 24.28 +4.33 +21.7% 8.52 Post-Earnings
JOBS 43.98 +7.54 +20.7% 8.07 Post-Earnings
EMAN 3.55 +0.54 +17.9% 7.95
LINTA 17.40 -3.58 -17.1% 12.56
SSH 6.81 -1.39 -17.0% 2.44

Shakers (Implied volatility Movers)
Symbol IV[30d] IVChg IVChg% SkewAdjChg Last Change
FIO 48.4% -48.0 -49.8% N/A $27.42 +6.40 Post-Earnings
BYI 25.5% -22.6 -47.0% -16.4 $45.09 +3.10 Post-Earnings
MNST 54.0% +16.8 +45.2% +4.3 $53.72 -7.48
LGF 37.2% -28.4 -43.3% -26.9 $13.53 +0.28 Post-Earnings
JCP 53.8% -38.9 -41.9% -36.1 $23.46 +1.36 Post-Earnings
HAR 32.0% -21.6 -40.3% -20.1 $45.69 +3.18 Post-Earnings
NVDA 36.0% -23.3 -39.3% -22.3 $14.63 -0.08 Post-Earnings
SPRD 57.4% -35.1 -37.9% -34.1 $16.96 -2.40 Post-Earnings
AGO 44.3% -22.8 -33.9% -22.7 $12.60 +0.22 Post-Earnings
DV 46.2% -18.7 -28.8% -19.4 $19.29 -0.58 Post-Earnings
Change in 30day ATMIV vs prior session close

52-Week Highs
40 new highs: ARI ASFI ASH BAH BCE BIP CBB CBE CNI CNO CSOD CTB DTV FIVE GEO GTIV ICUI IYZ JKHY LKQ LNN MENT MLNX NSM NYT OSIS PGF PSTI RCI RNF SBS SNI SSI STAG STX SVXY TCAP TU TWX USPH

52-week Lows
29 new lows: .VXEEM ACUR ATPG AXU CDXS CWST DM ENG EZCH HLYS HNSN INVE KID MRCY OTT PAL PEGA PGNX RNDY SHZ STRI UBNT UVXY VIIX VIXM VIXY VXX VXZ XINGF

Top Equity Blocks
11.6m CIM 2.40 +0.01 +0.4% 11:17:37 SUB5FINS
2.78m XLK 30.02 -0.04 -0.1% 13:24:41
2.59m SPY 140.40 -0.21 -0.1% 11:51:13
1.88m LLY 42.95 +0.23 +0.5% 10:28:00 – Tied to Options
1.75m SPY 140.57 -0.26 -0.2% 12:44:50 – Derivatively Priced
1.50m XLK 30.04 -0.02 -0.1% 10:56:45 – Derivatively Priced
1.50m SIRI 2.41 +0.01 +0.4% 10:09:57
1.15m SPY 140.21 -0.40 -0.3% 13:23:45 – Burst
1.10m SLV 27.32 -0.04 -0.1% 13:08:27 – Average Price Trade
1.02m NTSP 8.85 -0.12 -1.3% 12:10:18 – Burst

Tags: Earnings, market update, Sentiment

Category: Market Update