Financial Services
Capital One Financial Corporation (COF) $54.30 -2.32%
Capital One (COF) drops $1.31 to $54.27 after releasing its Jan card metrics and one player seized the weakness to open a new bullish spread on the stock. 5,000 Jan 50 puts are sold on COF at $3.80 to buy 5,000 Jan 57.5 – 65 call spreads for $2.30.
Morgan Stanley (MS) $23.82 -0.04%
Morgan Stanley (MS) is flat at $23.83 and an investor bought Jan 17 – 22 put spreads and bought April 17 puts on the investment bank, paying $1.46 for all three-legs, 10000X. They also bought 250K shares for $23.80. The options activity might roll up in strikes, as the Jan 22 puts look opening and [...]
CBOE Holdings Inc (CBOE) $35.78 +2.26%
CBOE Holdings, owner of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (which hosts a great program called Pre-Market Pulse on the cboe dot com web site. So please check out today’s show!), is trading up 81 cents to $35.80 after the company delivered comments at a CS Conference. One of the key takeways was that, if NASDAQ [...]
Iridium Communications Inc (IRDM) $6.96 -0.57%
Iridium Communications shares trading just below $7 and buyers are paying 15c for March 7.5 calls on this Satellite phone company. 1000 so far, OI is only 342 so they appear to open and with earnings at month end, the buyer may be looking for a break higher around that time. 52kw range is $5.60 [...]
NASDAQ OMX Group Inc (NDAQ) $31.06 +5.40%
NASDAQ OMX Group (NDAQ) saw a spike to $32.15 on increasing volume of 2.3 million shares on reports the company had held talks with Carlyle Group about going private. 3,105 calls and 750 puts traded on the stock, which is 6X the daily average. February 31 calls are the most active. 1,238 traded. Another 810 [...]
MGIC Investment Corp (MTG) $2.63 -4.36%
MGIC (MTG) drops 16 cents to $2.59 and a 9,200-lot of Mar 2 puts trades on the stock for 12 cents per contract when the market was 10 to 12 cents. A few smaller lots traded a bit later for 14 cents each. 12,376 contracts now changed hands against 336 in open interest and 30-day [...]
Charles Schwab Corporation (SCHW) $17.07 +1.67%
Schwab (SCHW) trades 25 cents higher to $17.04 on heavy turnover of 24 million shares on news of commission free ETF trading. The stock is up, but the underlying tone in the options order flow is less bullish. 17,000 puts and 5,460 calls traded on the discount broker. March 16 and 17 puts are the [...]
Capital One Financial Corporation (COF) $57.67 +0.44%
Buyer paid 42 to 47cents for a total of 5000 March 60-62.5 call spreads on Capital One this morning as shares traded from 57.57 to 57.75. ATMIV near 20% is the low end of it’s 52wk range and p/c skew is very flat with less than 2pts btw the 25delta put and call in March [...]
American Capital Ltd (ACAS) $13.09 -0.08%
Early bullish call buying in American Capital this morning, with nearly 4700 calls trading in the first 16mins and the 7% upside March 14s seeing most of the action as opening buyers pay 15cents.
Moodys Corp (MCO) $51.20 -7.50%
Moodys Corp is seeing very heavy option volume and a large spike in implied volatilty as shares trade down nearly 8% on news that peer S&P may be sued over mortgage bond ratings prior to the 2008 financial crisis. Nearly 11,000 MCO puts have traded, 24x normal, vs 1400 calls, with most of the volume [...]
