WhatsTrading.com Options Recap — 10/16/2012

Stock market averages are holding solid gains following a round of benign economic data. Before the opening bell, the Labor Department reported that the Consumer Price Index [CPI] ticked up .1 percent in September, which was half as much as expected. Industrial Production rebounded .4 percent after falling 1.4 percent in August. Meanwhile, NAHB said its index of Homebuilder Sentiment improved to 41 in October, from 40 the month before. Crude oil is up .25 to $92.10 per barrel and gold gained $8.5 to $1746. The euro recaptured 1.3 against the buck and a 2.4 percent jump in France’s CAC 40 helped pace an advance across Eurozone equity markets on hopes for a Spanish bailout. Earnings news is mixed, with Dow components UNH and KO down on the heels of their results. GS is also suffering a post-earnings drop. Yet, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 104 points and the NASDAQ added 31 points.

Trading in the options market is active today and the flow reflects the bullish underlying sentiment. About 10 million calls and 5.8 million puts traded across the exchanges so far. Stripping out ex-dividend activity in PG, VALE and a handful of others, volume is about 7.8 million calls and 5.8 million puts. Citi is also seeing high volume on news CEO Vikram Pandit has been ousted from the bank. Shares fell on the news in pre-market, but are now up 18 cents to $36.84, with more than 330K options traded on the bank. Sprint continues to see high volume, despite trading flat at $5.69 per share. 291K options have changed hands. IBM and Intel (INTC) are seeing high pre-earnings volume. A huge bullish spread traded in LYB, a big call buyer was seen in TYC, and a hefty position in TLT puts was rolled from October to November.

Meanwhile, CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) is down .10 to 15.17 heading into tomorrow’s expiration. Today is the last day to trade VIX October options. Total open interest in October calls on the index is 2.51 million and, of that, 2.46 million have strike prices greater than 15 – i.e. are set to expire worthless – depending on changes in open interest today and the final settlement value tomorrow morning.

Notable Flow

ASNA – Bullish flow detected in Ascena Retail Group Inc with 7173 calls trading, or 4x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $21.04 (0.79) with ATMIV lifting by 1.10 point and 56% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 14:41

SQNM – Bullish flow detected in Sequenom Inc with 6059 calls trading, or 5x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $3.35 (0.07) with ATMIV lifting by 2.11 point and 86% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 14:21

CE – Bullish flow detected in Celanese Corp with 4014 calls trading, or 2x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $36.6101 (0.7701) with ATMIV lifting by 1.82 point and 81% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 12:21

[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 VALE, PG, C, S, INTC, GDX, LYB, TLT, MUR, IBM

Movers
Symbol Last Change %Change StdDevs
RATE 10.88 -3.62 -24.9% 10.70
OSG 4.00 -1.17 -22.6% 4.42
ISIS 10.19 -2.96 -22.5% 7.39
CLWR 2.24 -0.45 -16.7% 1.23
OMG 19.75 +2.04 +11.5% 7.64
CMRE 13.50 -1.73 -11.4% 9.39
BPI 9.76 -1.21 -11.0% 3.78
OTT 2.60 +0.25 +10.6% 1.63
JRCC 4.29 -0.49 -10.3% 1.38
CAAS 4.90 +0.42 +9.5% 2.97

Symbol IV[30d] IVChg IVChg% SkewAdjChg Last Change
MAT 20.2% -12.7 -38.6% -11.0 $37.14 +1.72 Post-Earnings
DPZ 25.3% -15.0 -37.2% -12.8 $41.06 +2.82 Post-Earnings
STT 19.0% -7.9 -29.4% -5.5 $43.42 +1.84 Post-Earnings
WPZ 16.9% -5.8 -25.7% -4.1 $54.40 +1.33
GWW 23.2% -7.8 -25.2% -8.1 $208.87 -6.99 Post-Earnings
NKTR 80.3% +15.5 +23.9% +15.7 $10.73 -0.10
PKG 23.5% -7.2 -23.4% -6.3 $36.19 +0.59 Post-Earnings
FRX 25.9% -5.9 -18.6% -5.0 $35.54 -1.06 Post-Earnings
JNJ 10.0% -2.1 -17.3% -1.6 $69.33 +0.73 Post-Earnings
DTG 4.1% -0.8 -15.7% -0.6 $86.91 -0.09

52-Week Highs
148 new highs: AAT ABT ACE ACGL ACMP AEGR AFFY AGII AHL AIG ALL AMGN AMT AOL ASPS AWH AXS BEN BG BKH BWS CAG CB CBM CCE CCI CHDN CIU CMCSK CP CPA CRL CSU CTGX CUK CVH DGI DISCA DISCK DXPE DYAX EFX EHTH EIX EMB EPL EWL EWW EXH FAF FBR FISV FMX FNF FSIN FUN FVE GIII GIL GILT GRP GWR HBC HCC HTH HTHT HUB/B HYD IACI IDA IP JNJ KEP KIE LAMR LEG LINTA LKQ LLY LMCA LOW LPS LQD LYB LYG MAT MEMP MHO MHP MORN MRH MRK NFP NGG NLSN NOC NVO NVS NWL NYT OSTK PAC PCH PCY PFE PFF PKG POR PPH PRAA PRE PUK PVH RE REFR RKT RPAI SCI SHAW SIM SIRI SIX SNTS SNY SPNC SSI STC SUSP SXL TAO TRGP TRV TXI UL UN V VAC VCIT VFC VMED VPFG VR WAGE WLK WMT WPI WSM XL

52-week Lows
33 new lows: .VXEWZ ACTV AMD AONE BOOM EGI EOX GSVC HUSA INFN LDK LLNW MDLZ NAT NLST OCZ OSG PACB PBT PNSN PRMW QNST RATE SATC SDT SJB SOMX THQI TZOO VIXM VLTR VXZ ZAZA

Top Equity Blocks
2.26m S 5.72 +0.01 +0.3% FINRA-ADF 14:55:16 – Average Price Trade
2.20m S 5.72 +0.01 +0.3% FINRA-ADF 14:55:28 – Average Price Trade
2.08m GEN 2.77 FINRA-ADF 10:04:47
1.97m DBB 18.54 -0.14 -0.7% FINRA-ADF 13:35:26 – Burst
1.54m VALE 19.03 +0.70 +3.8% FINRA-ADF 10:27:05 – Average Price Trade
1.34m AOL 37.28 +0.04 +0.1% CHX (MIDWEST) 13:47:02 – Tied to Options
1.20m EEM 41.94 +0.43 +1.0% CHX (MIDWEST) 11:15:08
1.17m MSFT 29.64 +0.14 +0.5% FINRA-ADF 12:59:04
1.16m XLB 37.38 +0.82 +2.2% FINRA-ADF 13:24:14 – Average Price Trade
1.04m EEM 41.96 +0.40 +1.0% FINRA-ADF 14:18:23 – Derivatively Priced

Tags: featured, market update, Sentiment

Category: Market Update