WhatsTrading.com Options Recap — 10/26/2012

Stock market averages saw whippy action, but finished little changed Friday. It was trend seen across a number of different markets. Gold and oil are flat. The euro is unchanged at 1.293 against the buck. Trading was slow across European equity markets as well. Domestic news painted a mixed picture; with GDP at 2 percent for the third quarter and .1 percent better-than-expected, but UofMichigan sentiment index at 82.6 in late-October and .5 points less than expected. Another barrage of earnings releases hit the market and drove volatility in names like Amazon (AMZN), Taser (TASR), and Decker Outdoor (DECK). Apple (AAPL) slipped $5.54 to $604, but held the $600 level following its in-line report. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished a seesaw session with a gain of just 3 points. The NASDAQ moved 1.8 points higher, but the S&P 500 lost 1 point.

Overall options volume was a bit higher than usual with about 15 million contracts traded – 8 million calls and 7 million puts. Earnings news continues to drive a lot of the flow in the equity options market. Apple saw a flurry of activity in its Weekly options. Of the 1.7 million contracts traded in AAPL today, 49 percent of the flow was in the Weekly options that are now expiring. AMZN, VRSN, DECK, ACI and NXY also saw increasing post-earnings flow. 225K options traded in Netflix (NFLX) as the stock surged13 percent. Meanwhile, VIX drifted down .29 to 17.83. At almost 18, the volatility index is well above the S&P 500’s actual volatility. SPX 30-day historical volatility is 11.1 percent, suggesting that market is priced for higher volatility over the next thirty days compared to the past thirty days. However, overall volumes in the index market are not impressive. Only 172K contracts traded in the VIX pit today. Have a great weekend!

Notable Flow

SWHC – Bullish flow detected in Smith and Wesson Holding Corp with 5710 calls trading, or 7x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $9.62 (0.18) with ATMIV lifting by 4.30 point and 84% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 15:41

FL – Bullish flow detected in Foot Locker Inc with 7538 calls trading, or 7x the recent avg daily call volume in the name. Shares near $33.525 (-0.445) with ATMIV lifting by 1.97 point and 60% of todays call premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 14:41

SNV – Bearish activity detected in Synovus Financial Corporation with 3628 puts trading, or 4x the recent avg daily put volume in the name. Shares near $2.495 (-0.055) with ATMIV lifting by 3.54 point and 63% of todays put premium trading offer side. (Trade-Alert) 12:31

High options volume is being seen in AAPL, AMZN, NFLX, VRSN, KMI, PCLN, WMB, DECK, ACI, and NXY

Symbol Last Change %Change StdDevs
CTCT 11.93 -5.10 -29.9% 16.15 Post-Earnings
TASR 8.07 +1.68 +26.3% 17.41 Post-Earnings
AMCC 5.72 +1.19 +26.1% 9.35 Post-Earnings
DV 26.02 +5.20 +25.0% 11.34 Post-Earnings
HMSY 20.60 -6.32 -23.5% 6.80 Post-Earnings

STMP 26.18 +4.38 +20.1% 11.86 Post-Earnings
DECK 29.46 -6.03 -17.0% 6.16 Post-Earnings
MXWL 6.32 -1.29 -17.0% 7.14 Post-Earnings
IPCM 34.83 -7.07 -16.9% 12.13 Post-Earnings
IMGN 11.46 -2.31 -16.8% 7.84 Post-Earnings

Symbol IV[30d] IVChg IVChg% SkewAdjChg Last Change
AM 24.7% +8.4 +51.3% +nan $17.15 -0.04
EXPE 37.4% -36.2 -49.1% -30.8 $59.08 +7.83 Post-Earnings
CERN 27.1% -23.2 -46.2% -27.1 $77.44 +8.97 Post-Earnings
CSTR 41.0% -31.6 -43.5% -30.3 $44.41 +1.18 Post-Earnings
AMZN 30.3% -22.8 -43.0% -18.1 $238.21 +15.29 Post-Earnings

DV 52.2% -31.0 -37.3% -26.9 $26.02 +5.20 Post-Earnings
DECK 50.4% -27.6 -35.4% -27.8 $29.46 -6.03 Post-Earnings
N 35.8% -19.5 -35.2% -16.0 $65.39 +8.48 Post-Earnings
RMD 36.4% -18.9 -34.2% -19.2 $39.91 -1.43 Post-Earnings
S 26.4% +6.5 +32.5% +6.4 $5.49 -0.03

52-Week Highs
45 new highs: ADT AEM AGM BECN BYI CDE CFNL CINF CMCSA CMCSK COG COLM CYMI EHTH EME EMN GLT GRA HYD INGR KALU KFN KR LPL MCO MDF MYL N NEU NWL OSIS OSTK PKI POL RCI RGC RWT SEAC SHOS SLM SPRT TASR TAYC WAC YHOO

52-week Lows
75 new lows: ACTV ACUR AES AFFX AMKR ARX ATI ATSG ATVI BBY BEBE BJRI BOOM BTH BV CERP CIS CMTL COOL CROX CTCT CWH CZR DAVE DCM DECK DELL DNDN DVR EBR EBR/B ESI FTE GES GIFI HGG HMSY HPQ HSII HZNP IDIX IMMR KSWS KVPHQ LTBR MBLX MDLZ MIG MPO NAT NTAP NTLS NTRI NVTL OPTR PACB PULS QTM SB SCHS SGG SHZ STEC STRI SZYM TAN TEA TRGT TSPT TSU TTI WBMD WCRX WRE ZIP

Top Equity Blocks
11.9m BAC 9.12 -0.12 -1.3% NYSE 16:00:39
7.57m BSBR 6.70 -0.30 -4.3% FINRA-ADF 13:54:41 – Burst
6.20m S 5.49 -0.03 -0.5% NYSE 16:01:12
6.18m INTC 21.95 +0.26 +1.2% NASDAQ 16:00:00
6.08m SPY 141.40 -0.33 -0.2% FINRA-ADF 11:40:49 – Derivatively Priced
5.76m VALE 18.28 -0.06 -0.3% NYSE 16:00:52
5.16m VALE/P 17.66 -0.07 -0.4% NYSE 16:01:16
4.69m SIRI 2.87 +0.02 +0.7% FINRA-ADF 10:03:14 – Burst
4.67m C 36.60 -0.81 -2.2% NYSE 16:01:20
4.28m MSFT 28.21 +0.33 +1.2% NASDAQ 16:00:00

Tags: featured, market update, Sentiment

Category: Market Update