WhatsTrading.com Options Recap — 10/11/2012

Stock market averages are little changed on a day of whippy action Thursday. Better-than-expected jobless claims numbers helped lift stock index futures before the opening bell after the Labor Department reported that filings for jobless benefits dropped by 30K to 339K last week, which was about 30K better-than-expected. However, there’s talk that California didn’t report their numbers and that explains the large decline. Other data showed import prices up more than forecast and the Trade Balance widening a bit more than anticipated. Trading across Europe was mostly orderly and France’s CAC 40 Index led equity markets higher with a 1.4 percent gain. The euro ticked up .4 percent to 1.293 on the buck. Natural gas rallied on bullish weekly inventory data and crude rose $1 to $92.25 per barrel. The grains – corn, soybean and wheat – are all up sharply today.

While the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose more than 80 points early, the morning gains have been lost and the Dow is now flat. Cautious comments about the “fiscal cliff” from Erkstine Bowles on CNBC seemed to take the wind of the market’s sails midday. The White House Chief of Staff assigned a 30 percent probability of Congressional leaders reaching a compromise to avoid the yearend fiscal cliff and said that the stock market has not adequately factored in the risk. Meanwhile, the NASDAQ has seesawed in and out of positive territory – now unchanged on the day.

Trading in the options market was active in the first two hours, but the projected volume for the day is 13.6 million contracts and about 1.3 million below the recent daily average. With less than an hour to trade, 6.3 million calls and 5 million puts traded across the exchanges. The telecomm names are seeing heavy trading on reports Softbank might make a substantial investment in Sprint. Shares of Sprint are now up 65 cents to $5.69 and volume in the options is approaching a half million contracts. Clearwire (CLWR) and MetroPCS (PCS) are seeing a flurry of activity. AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) are seeing losses and increased put activity following the news. The coal stocks are hot and Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) continues to outperform amid heavy call activity. AMD Jan 3 calls are among today’s most actively-traded equity options, with more than 43,000 contracts so far. Meanwhile, CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) is down .68 to 15.61 – as investors don’t seem to concerned about the upcoming flood of earnings and increased number of economic releases due out next week.

Notable Flow

DOLE – Bullish flow detected in Dole Food Company Inc with 7237 calls trading, or 3x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $12.2 (0.02) with ATMIV lifting by 2.07 point and 75% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 13:01

FST – Bullish flow detected in Forest Oil Corporation with 9466 calls trading, or 2x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $8.94 (0.33) with ATMIV lifting by 4.27 point and 69% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 12:21

T – Bearish activity detected in AT&T with 49541 puts trading, or 2x the recent avg daily put volume in the name. Shares near $36.41 (-0.51) with ATMIV lifting by 1.61 point and 71% of todays put premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 12:11

[Note: Premium subscribers, you can see all of the day’s Bullish/Bearish auto-color by using symbol @all in Flow Monitor, and then 1, and then + for more.]

High options volume is being seen in S, PCS, ANR, CLWR, WMD, BTU, ACI, NFX, SWY

Movers
Symbol Last Change %Change StdDevs
JRCC 3.63 +0.47 +14.8% 2.98
S 5.76 +0.72 +14.3% 4.15
ANR 8.33 +1.02 +14.0% 3.08
DRWI 2.50 +0.30 +13.6% 4.28 Post-Earnings
ACI 7.73 +0.87 +12.7% 3.07
OSK 29.88 +3.03 +11.3% 4.47
CMN 24.65 -3.10 -11.2% 7.21 Post-Earnings
OTT 2.49 -0.30 -10.8% 1.70
JKS 3.86 +0.37 +10.7% 1.98
KITD 2.11 -0.25 -10.6% 3.75

Symbol IV[30d] IVChg IVChg% SkewAdjChg Last Change
SWY 31.7% -19.6 -38.2% -19.6 $15.87 -0.42 Post-Earnings
VRTX 42.9% -18.3 -29.9% -17.6 $56.93 -0.07
PCS 55.6% +12.4 +28.7% +12.3 $11.78 -0.26
CTB 51.6% +11.3 +27.9% +11.2 $19.70 +1.01
ARR 19.6% +4.2 +27.3% +2.6 $7.38 -0.04
S 70.7% +14.8 +26.5% +13.3 $5.76 +0.72
FAST 26.4% -9.3 -26.0% -6.9 $46.09 +3.77 Post-Earnings
SAN 45.6% +7.2 +18.8% +nan $7.50 +0.12
CTCM 49.0% +7.8 +18.8% +0.6 $9.39 -0.12
TWO 16.3% -3.7 -18.5% -2.4 $11.86 +0.15

52-Week Highs
66 new highs: ACCL ACGL ACMP AFFY AGII AIG BANR BIOS BZ CAG CBM CI CIU CRK CSE CVH CZZ DVA EMB ETP EVER EXH FAF FLT FSII GCVRZ GEO GRA GRFS GWR GXP HCBK HII HVT IGATY IRM LMCA LOPE LQD MDAS MHP MTB NRG NYT OSK PCY PDLI PFF PGX PKY PRE PTIE RTH S SBAC SEMG SHAW SIM SIRI SLM SPB VAC VCIT WCBO WSM XL

52-week Lows
30 new lows: .VXEWZ ALU ATML CZR DELL DIOD DNDN FORM GMXR HUSA INTC KIOR KITD LOJN MRVL NANO NATI PACB PRMW PULS RATE RNDY SOMX STEC TNP TYC UNIS USD UTSI VNDA

Top Equity Blocks
9.00m MO 32.50 -0.84 -2.5% FINRA-ADF 10:08:55 – Burst
3.51m GLW 13.00 +0.05 +0.4% FINRA-ADF 12:30:38
2.50m S 5.95 +0.91 +18.1% FINRA-ADF 11:31:19
2.36m BPO 16.13 -0.03 -0.2% FINRA-ADF 12:00:38
2.08m S 5.70 +0.66 +13.1% FINRA-ADF 14:02:28
1.30m S 5.65 +0.64 +12.8% FINRA-ADF 13:59:56 – Derivatively Priced
1.20m CTXS 67.00 -1.70 -2.5% FINRA-ADF 11:03:24 – Burst
1.18m ITUB 14.65 +0.15 +1.1% FINRA-ADF 14:25:01 ANUR
1.08m HPQ 14.30 +0.12 +0.8% FINRA-ADF 14:36:39 – Burst
1.05m DVR 1.33 +0.03 +2.3% FINRA-ADF 12:34:35

Tags: featured, market update, Sentiment

Category: Market Update