Diamond Foods (DMND) loses 49 cents to $37.31 and it appears that one or more investors has been building a position in Feb 30 – 35 put spreads on the snack food company today. The top trade is 3,021 Feb (register to read more …) [...]

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Yahoo (YHOO) loses a penny to $15.81 and one strategist sells 10,000 Jan 12.5 puts on the Internet giant at 89 cents and 17,500 Jan 20 calls at 57 cents — possibly exiting a trade and/or betting that the stock (register to read more …) [...]

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Barrick Gold (ABX) edges 17 cents higher to $49.34 after gold rebounded from recent losses and is trading up $11 to $17.36 an ounce. Options action in the gold miner today includes a 4150-lot of Feb 50 calls for 57 (register to read more …) [...]

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Yahoo for the trader who just put up a cool 270,000 contract trade on the PHLX on an otherwise low volume Monday with the broad averages near flat and vix up .79 to 17.89. On the PHLX the initiator paid (register to read more …) [...]

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Vulcan Materials (VMC) is up 4 cents to $44.83 and early options trades on the stock include a multi-exchange sweep of 1,063 Feb 45 puts for $1.80 per contract. 3,070 now traded against 106 in open interest. Data from the (register to read more …) [...]

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Dryships (DRYS) sees a second day of increasing volume. Shares are up 20 cents to $2.63 on volume approaching 14 million. Typical volume in the first two hours is about 2 million shares. Meanwhile, options activity is running 3.5X the (register to read more …) [...]

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CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) fell to multi-month lows of 16.1 Friday morning and was recently down .77 points to 17.10. Trading in the VIX pit is very busy today and included some sizable blocks. One noteworthy trade is a Feb (register to read more …) [...]

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MIPS Technologies (MIPS) loses 10 cents to $6.41 and options volume on the Santa Clara, CA chipmaker is running 8X the daily average. 6840 puts and 630 calls traded in the name so far. The flow is concentrated in April (register to read more …) [...]

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Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) is up $2.98 to $105.64 and has now rallied 8.4 percent this week. One player in the options market seems to be anticipating additional gains in the Irving, TX oil and gas company and sold 5,000 (register to read more …) [...]

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Microsoft (MSFT) notched a new 52-week high today and is up 11 cents to $30. Shares have rallied 15.6 percent so far in 2012 and were helped by a better-than-expected Jan 19 earnings release. One player in the options market (register to read more …) [...]

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