WhatsTrading.com Options Recap — 09/14/2012

Stock market averages are holding gains with help from economic data, but are well off session highs heading into the final 90 minutes of trading Friday. Data released early showed Retail Sales up .9 percent in August and .2 percent more than expected. CPI was up .6 percent and in-line with expectations. Industrial Production unexpectedly fell 1.2 percent for July, but the Univ of Michigan Sentiment Index for mid-September surprised – improving to 79.2 from 74.3 and much better than the 73.5 that was expected. Stocks were broadly higher across Asia and Europe on the heels of yesterday’s QE3 promise from Federal Reserve officials. Crude oil is up 77 cents to $99.08 amid flaring tensions in the Middle East. Gold is building on its gains from yesterday, up $2.4 to $1774.5 and its best levels since February. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrials are up 38 points, but 75 points from session highs. The NASDAQ is up 30.

Are investors a bit overzealous? The projected options volume is almost 30 million contracts, with call activity outpacing put volume by a ratio of almost two-to-one. About 14 million calls and 8 million puts traded across the exchanges so far. Keep in mind, daily volume hit their lowest levels in more than a year less than three weeks ago when 8.5 million contracts traded on Tuesday, August 28. Today’s options volume will more than triple that and is on pace for the second highest of the year – surpassed only by the 32 million traded on 3/15.

Volume in Bank of America (BAC) is approaching 1 million contracts. More than 700K contracts traded in the SPDR Financials (XLF). Trading is very heavy in the iShares Emerging Markets Fund (EEM), PowerShares Bullish Dollar Fund (UUP), and the Russell 2000 (.RUT). Ford (F) and JP Morgan (JPM) options are actively traded. Meanwhile, VIX is up 3.8 percent to 14.59, as players look forward to data on housing and manufacturing next week as well as the Sept Quadruple witch quarterly expiration.

Have a great weekend and see you Monday!

Notable Flow
PXD – Bullish flow detected in Pioneer Natural Resources Co with 8584 calls trading, or 4x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $113.11 (3.83) with ATMIV lifting by 1.04 point and 60% of todays call premium trading offer side.

MAS – Bullish flow detected in Masco Corp with 5630 calls trading, or 7x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $15.77 (0.44) with ATMIV lifting by 1.36 point and 56% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 14:01

PAAS – Bullish flow detected in Pan American Silver Corp with 16772 calls trading, or 4x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $20.3308 (0.7208) with ATMIV lifting by 1.33 point and 71% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 13:41

High options volume is being seen in BAC, XLF, EEM, UUP, .RUT, JPM, F, GDX, XOP, PFE

Movers
Symbol Last Change %Change StdDevs
ROYL 2.94 +0.48 +19.5% 5.70
ALOG 79.87 +10.68 +15.4% 14.52 Post-Earnings
AUMN 5.96 -1.05 -15.0% 2.64
SAVE 16.91 -2.75 -14.0% 10.69
SIMO 16.43 +1.99 +13.8% 6.98
EGLE 3.69 +0.44 +13.5% 5.56
REDF 4.39 +0.52 +13.4% 2.16
GNK 3.95 +0.44 +12.5% 3.41
ASGN 19.28 +2.09 +12.2% 6.09
OMX 7.94 +0.83 +11.7% 4.62

Shakers (Implied volatility Movers)
Symbol IV[30d] IVChg IVChg% SkewAdjChg Last Change
SIMO 68.3% +16.9 +32.9% +13.1 $16.43 +1.99
ZUMZ 54.0% +11.7 +27.5% N/A $27.99 -1.22
NCT 31.8% +6.6 +26.1% +0.8 $7.94 +0.25
VQ 29.0% -8.0 -21.7% N/A $11.85 +0.15
ARCC 15.7% +2.4 +18.3% +2.4 $17.46 +0.11
AZO 28.5% +4.3 +18.0% +2.3 $355.21 -14.75
TSN 37.1% +5.5 +17.5% +5.7 $16.45 +0.10
ROC 34.6% +5.1 +17.3% +3.6 $50.95 +1.46
UUP 9.0% +1.2 +15.8% +1.2 $21.65 -0.10
MWW 109.1% +14.8 +15.6% +12.8 $8.17 -0.33

52-Week Highs
Too many to List!

52-week Lows
53 new lows: BEBE CARB COOL DDMGQ DOG DPK DRV DUG DUST DXD EDZ EEV EFU EFZ EPV ERY FAZ FSA GASX GLL HDGE MIDZ MZZ PSQ PULS QID REW RSW RUSS RWM SDOW SDS SEF SH SIJ SJB SKF SMDD SMN SPXS SPXU SQQQ SRS SRTY TECS TWM TZA UVXY VIIX VIXM VIXY VXX VXZ

Top Equity Blocks
3.00m NOK 3.12 +0.18 +6.1% FINRA-ADF 10:30:00 – Average Price Trade
2.50m VTI 75.63 +0.44 +0.6% FINRA-ADF 14:04:04 – Derivatively Priced
2.48m YPF 13.00 -0.10 -0.7% FINRA-ADF 13:54:04 – Average Price Trade
2.00m NOK 3.14 +0.15 +5.1% FINRA-ADF 10:51:06 – Average Price Trade
1.86m DBB 20.40 +0.68 +3.4% FINRA-ADF 14:03:21 – Burst
1.50m SPY 146.62 +0.64 +0.4% FINRA-ADF 14:24:19 – Average Price Trade
1.50m SPY 147.50 +0.88 +0.6% CHX (MIDWEST) 11:09:57 – Tied to Options
1.38m GEN 2.63 +0.04 +1.5% FINRA-ADF 12:17:05
1.20m APC 74.92 +0.88 +1.2% CHX (MIDWEST) 14:15:31 – Tied to Options
1.20m ALJ 13.80 +0.16 +1.2% FINRA-ADF 09:48:20 – Burst

Tags: market update, Sentiment

Category: Market Update