WhatsTrading.com Options Recap — 10/12/12

Stock market averages are holding modest losses and trading is slowing ahead of the weekend. Bank of America (BAC) is off 2.5 percent and the Dow’s biggest loser on the heels of post-earnings declines in Wells Fargo (WFC) and JP Morgan (JPM). BAC reports Wednesday morning. Pre-earnings jitters continue to affect market action and modest losses across the Eurozone seemed to weigh on Wall Street as well. Meanwhile, action in the commodities market is lackluster, with crude down 32 cents to $91.70 and gold falling $15 to $1755.5. Many of the grains are giving back some of the big gains seen yesterday sparked by the latest USDA crop reports. On the economic front, a bright spot today was the Univ of Michigan Index for mid-October, which showed a surprise jump to 83.1, from 78.3 and better than the 78.5 that was expected. PPI for September was up 1.1 percent and .3 percent more than expected. Elsewhere, last night’s heated Vice Presidential debate, which included a lot of fake smiles and baffling math, seemed to have no meaningful market impact. Instead, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been chopping around aimlessly throughout most of the session and is down 3 points. With an hour left to trade, the NASDAQ is down 1.4 points.

Trading in the options market is slowing, with 5.9 million calls and 5.7 million puts traded across the exchanges. Projected volume is 14 million contracts and a bit less than the recent daily average of 14.9 million. SPY is down 37 cents to $142.99 and Weekly 143 puts on the ETF are the most actives on the day. 121,283 traded against 45,714 in open interest. Apple (AAPL) Weekly 630 puts and 635 calls are today’s next most actives. Sprint (S) continues to see heavy trading in the wake of yesterday’s headlines that Softbank wants to make a big investment in the telecomm. 325,000 options traded in Sprint today. TJX was the subject of a large put write, and a bearish three-way spread was initiated on Yahoo (YHOO) today. Some of the energies – RRC, PSX, PXP – have seen bullish action. Bears are circling FMCN and OSG. Meanwhile, CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) is up .26 to 15.85 ahead of Retail Sales Monday a morning and a flood of third quarter earnings reports all next week.

Notable Flow

OSG – Bearish activity detected in Overseas Shipholding Group Inc with 25682 puts trading, or 36x the recent avg daily put volume in the name. Shares near $5.355 (-0.525) with ATMIV lifting by 4.14 point and 50% of todays put premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 13:51

PXD – Bullish flow detected in Pioneer Natural Resources Co with 28657 calls trading, or 3x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $102.08 (-2.03) with ATMIV lifting by 1.27 point and 82% of todays call premium trading offer side. Auto Content (Trade-Alert) 13:01

FITB – Bearish activity detected in Fifth Third Bancorp with 2065 puts trading, or 3x the recent avg daily put volume in the name. Shares near $15.28 (-0.61) with ATMIV lifting by 2.78 point and 83% of todays put premium trading offer side.

[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, WFC, AMD, XRT, CLWR, PXP, BP, TJX, VLO, PSX

Movers
Symbol Last Change %Change StdDevs
NPSP 10.79 +1.66 +18.2% 9.08
GLUU 3.39 +0.50 +17.3% 2.97
TZOO 20.18 -3.32 -14.1% 11.97
AEGR 15.90 +1.92 +13.7% 6.80
OSG 5.08 -0.80 -13.6% 3.38
AMD 2.79 -0.41 -12.7% 3.78
TSON 2.91 +0.32 +12.4% 3.07
SCMR 5.22 +0.55 +11.8% 6.13
EMAN 4.25 +0.42 +11.0% 5.49
XNPT 10.64 -1.27 -10.7% 2.23

Symbol IV[30d] IVChg IVChg% SkewAdjChg Last Change
ARR 29.3% +9.7 +49.7% +2.9 $7.24 -0.11
FMCN 46.6% +14.3 +44.5% +10.7 $23.92 -0.54
INFY 27.2% -19.3 -41.6% -16.6 $44.31 -3.91 Post-Earnings
NPSP 113.1% -44.2 -28.1% -20.8 $10.79 +1.66
JBHT 26.5% -9.1 -25.6% -7.3 $58.57 +3.78 Post-Earnings
RRD 43.6% +8.8 +25.1% +nan $10.69 -0.43
SCSS 76.3% +12.8 +20.1% +13.0 $31.90 -0.31
WFC 20.1% -4.7 -19.0% -5.8 $34.11 -1.07 Post-Earnings
TWO 20.7% +3.1 +17.9% +1.9 $11.68 -0.13
HTS 15.9% +2.1 +15.6% +0.5 $26.58 -0.47

52-Week Highs
28 new highs: ACGL ACMP BOND BZ CI CIU CPA CSU CTGX CVH DVA EMB FSIN GCVRZ GEO GLP GRA LQD MHP NPSP OGE PCY SEMG SIX VAC VASC VCIT VMED

52-week Lows
48 new lows: .VXEWZ ACW AFFX AMCC AMD ASYS ATML CVVT DIOD EOX EZPW FOE FORM GSVC INTC INTX IRF IVAC JIVE KIOR LDK LEDS MRVL NANO NCTY OCZ OXGN PLAB POWI RATE RNDY SATC SCMR SOMX STEC STRI THQI TNP TNS TSU TYC TZOO USD UTSI VIXM VTUS VXZ ZAZA

Top Equity Blocks
4.00m SNV 2.36 -0.07 -2.9% FINRA-ADF 12:50:00 – Average Price Trade
3.00m S 5.69 -0.07 -1.2% FINRA-ADF 12:11:29
2.74m GEN 2.77 -0.07 -2.5% FINRA-ADF 10:15:22 – Average Price Trade
2.50m SIRI 2.74 +0.01 +0.4% FINRA-ADF 13:53:32
2.50m SIRI 2.73 +0.01 +0.2% FINRA-ADF 12:58:08
2.50m SIRI 2.71 -0.01 -0.2% FINRA-ADF 12:01:21 – Derivatively Priced
2.45m VWO 41.85 +0.13 +0.3% FINRA-ADF 10:02:47 – Burst
2.19m SNV 2.36 -0.08 -3.3% FINRA-ADF 12:14:22
2.19m SNV 2.36 -0.08 -3.3% FINRA-ADF 12:14:07
2.00m AMD 2.90 -0.30 -9.4% FINRA-ADF 11:23:51

Tags: featured, market update, Sentiment

Category: Market Update