WhatsTrading.com Options Recap — 10/08/2012

Market action has been rangebound with a negative bias on Columbus Day. With government offices and the bond market closed, traders took their cue from action in overseas markets Monday morning. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell .9 percent after a one-week Chinese holiday and after the World Bank lowered its 2012 economic growth forecast for East Asia. In Europe, eyes are on Luxembourg as EU officials attempt to iron out additional plans to stem the region’s debt crisis. France’s CAC 40 Index lost 1.4 percent and the euro fell back to 1.295 on the buck. Trading in the commodities markets has been sluggish. Crude oil is down 39 cents to $89.49 per barrel and gold lost $4.5 to $1776.3 an ounce. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has traded in a 58-point range and is down 16 points heading into the final hour. The NASDAQ lost 21 points.

Overall trading volumes in the market are light and seem to reflect the cautious underlying tone. It’s October after all, a historically volatile period for the equity market. But only 4.1 million calls and 3.8 million puts traded on the session Monday. CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) is up .83 to 15.16. Today’s most active options are puts on Console Energy (CNX), as a massive block of Jan 29 puts is apparently being rolled to a Jan 25 – 31 put spread. Corning (GLW) Jan 15 calls are the third most actives. After that, today’s most actively traded options contracts include SPY Oct 145 puts, SPY Weekly 144 puts, SPY Oct 149 calls, SPY Weekly 145 puts, XLF Mar 15 puts, and VIX Nov 23 calls. (Premium subscribers: to see the most actives at any time, use symbol @all in Flow Monitor).

Notable Flow

EDU – Bearish activity detected in New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc with 6436 puts trading, or 3x the recent avg daily put volume in the name. Shares near $16.47 (-0.25) with ATMIV lifting by 6.01 point and 94% of todays put premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert)

KMX – Bullish flow detected in CarMax Group with 9862 calls trading, or 11x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $32.05 (2.86) with ATMIV lifting by 4.44 point and 50% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 13:41

LXK – Bullish flow detected in Lexmark International Group Inc with 4231 calls trading, or 2x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $22.17 (0.62) with ATMIV lifting by 3.49 point and 73% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 12:41

High options volume is being seen in CNX, NFLX, DELL, LLY, GLW, VRNG, HCA, DF, MPC, LOW

Movers
Symbol Last Change %Change StdDevs
VRNG 5.43 +0.89 +19.6% 1.98
GDOT 10.42 -2.43 -18.9% 7.42
CBLI 2.73 +0.38 +16.2% 2.66
PRGS 18.32 -3.16 -14.7% 5.45
AFFX 3.73 -0.58 -13.6% 6.60
TPCG 45.60 +4.93 +12.1% 12.46
NFLX 74.05 +7.49 +11.3% 3.04
VVUS 20.59 +2.04 +11.0% 2.58
NBG 2.77 +0.27 +10.8% 1.95
DCTH 2.28 +0.21 +10.1% 2.64

Symbol IV[30d] IVChg IVChg% SkewAdjChg Last Change
LLY 19.7% -8.0 -29.0% -6.9 $50.60 +2.37
DELL 36.9% +7.8 +26.9% +7.9 $9.80 +0.14
ABV 26.8% +4.8 +21.9% +5.1 $41.22 +0.98
PAA 16.4% +2.9 +21.8% +2.4 $45.89 -0.41
KMX 28.5% +4.6 +19.1% +nan $31.80 +2.61
CLMT 34.4% +5.3 +18.1% +3.8 $31.94 -1.74
WPZ 20.0% +3.0 +18.0% +1.0 $54.42 -0.46
LSI 44.1% +6.5 +17.2% +3.0 $6.83 -0.27
IBB 17.4% +2.5 +17.1% +1.7 $145.73 -1.45
NFLX 70.5% +10.3 +17.1% +9.1 $74.05 +7.49

52-Week Highs
56 new highs: ABG ACGL AIG AKAM ALL AN AWH CLX CSE CTGX DGX DW EHTH ENOC EXAS FMX FNF FSC GCVRZ GLP GPI GUID HCII HUB/B INWK JAH KRFT LAD LINE LLY LQD MEMP MKL MMM MPC MPW NRG NWN ONXX ORBC PAC PGX PNM PRE SAH SIM STC TCAP TFX TWO VAC VIAB VNR VRNG WMT WSM

52-week Lows
28 new lows: ADTN AFFX ASTM BEBE BOOM BRKS CAJ CEVA COOL DDMGQ ENPH EZPW GMXR IDIX ISIL JBL LLNW NEWP OCZ OIIM PNSN POWI SATC SCHS UNIS VLTR WEN ZAZA

Top Equity Blocks
5.98m XLK 30.58 -0.29 -0.9% FINRA-ADF 15:04:47 – Average Price Trade
3.20m XLK 30.54 -0.35 -1.1% FINRA-ADF 14:59:43 – Average Price Trade
2.00m S 5.15 -0.05 -1.0% FINRA-ADF 14:46:15
1.71m MDLZ 27.53 -0.26 -0.9% FINRA-ADF 12:18:00 – Out of Sequence
1.63m DF 15.10 -0.30 -1.9% CHX (MIDWEST) 13:18:42 – Tied to Options
1.05m SPY 145.64 -0.50 -0.3% FINRA-ADF 13:35:09 – Average Price Trade
1.00m BSBR 7.36 +0.07 +1.0% FINRA-ADF 11:52:22 – Seller
954k EEM 41.57 -0.38 -0.9% FINRA-ADF 15:14:21 – Burst
909k XLK 30.52 -0.37 -1.2% FINRA-ADF 14:44:21 – Burst
892k VGK 46.23 -0.42 -0.9% FINRA-ADF 11:24:09 – Average Price Trade

Tags: market update, Sentiment

Category: Market Update