*Scanning all single-stocks subject to 2500 contracts minimum call or put volume

3PAR (PAR) is up 70 cents to $26.79 and options volume is running 21X the average daily on speculation DELL might make a counter-bid for the storage device maker. H-P made a move to buy the company yesterday at a 33 percent premium over Dell Computer’s initial offer. PAR is up and it looks like some investors are indeed bracing for a sweetened Dell bid, as Sep and October 30 calls are seeing heavy trading and implied volatility is up 28 percent to 36.5.

Monster Worldwide, the online job posting site, is down 30c to $10.30 a new 52-week low and option volume is 23x the daily average driven by in the September $10 puts in which block of 9,800 (total 11,000 contracts) have traded against prior open interest of just 964 in the strike. This is appears to be an opening sale and would consistent with a theme that developed yesterday as we saw put selling in names such as WAG, SVU, SWY, HSY as the stocks sank lower. The difference here is that Monster would be considered a very economically sensitive company whereas the others are viewed as defensive for a slowing economy. Today’s action is not a positive response to the news that MWW has finalized a deal to acquire HotJobs and entered an agreement with Yahoo.

*Scanning all single-stocks subject to 2500 contracts minimum call or put volume

*Scanning all single-stocks subject to 2500 contracts minimum call or put volume

A note to Premium subscribers: You have access to additional updates using Flow Monitor. These are automatically generated alerts based on trading activity and are triggered when call or put volume reaches a specific threshold. Here are some examples from today. These will not appear on the web site and are only available using Flow Monitor:

Bearish activity detected in Newell Rubbermaid Inc with 4039 puts trading, or 39x the recent avg daily put volume in the name.

Bullish flow detected in Canadian Solar Inc with 5753 calls trading, or 4x the recent avg daily call volume in the name.

Bullish flow detected in Red Hat Inc with 3162 calls trading, or 5x the recent avg daily call volume in the name.

To see all of the auto content from today, in Flow Monitor, enter the symbol @all. Then, enter menu option 1. To get more, enter +.

Bonds are bid and both the iShares Long-term Bond ETF (TLT) and the ProShares UltraShort Lehman 20+ Treasury ETF (TBT) are seeing increasing options action Monday. The benchmark ten-year is up 21/32nd and its yield has fallen to just 2.59 percent. Investors are turning to Treasury notes and bonds, as the economic data disappoints, equities falter, and the Fed sits ready on the sidelines to buy more bonds. In TLT, shares are up $2.21 to $104.50 today and options volume is 2.5X the average daily, with 24K calls and 21K puts traded. In TBT, which moves twice the inverse to TLT, shares are down $1.48 to $32.70 and options volume is 2X the average daily, with 44K calls and 18K puts traded. Overall sentiment seems mixed, but there seems to be at least a few traders looking for a correction in Treasurys and buying calls on the TBT. The fund is now 34 percent below levels seen in early April and, after today’s dip, has suffered a three-week 12.4 percent slide.

Hewlett Packard (HPQ) options remain actively traded, the day after shares tumbled 8 percent on news its CEO is stepping down amid sexual harassment allegations. HPQ is up 7 cents to $42.66 and options volume is running 3X the average daily, with 76K calls and 37K puts traded so far. Much of the activity has been in smaller lots. The top trade is an Aug – Sep 43 call spread at 75 cents, 2000X on PHLX and might be a bet that shares will hold around these levels over the next ten days before moving higher into the Sep expiration. Aug 43 calls are the most actives. 18.6K traded (57 percent bid). Meanwhile, overall implied volatility is down 12.5 percent to 27, on diminishing concerns over Friday’s news.

Option volume in banking technology firm Fidelity National averaged just a few hundred contracts per day through April but saw dramatic growth in early May, to 15,000 contracts daily as total open interest grew 10-fold to nearly 200,000 contracts. Today’s open interest is 400,000 contracts and highly concentrated in the August 35 calls and puts. The option volume increase is related to a strategy for the share buyback program launched by the company, in which they will use a modified Dutch Tender auction process to purchase shares in the $29-$31 level, slightly above current price of $28.63. The 35 strike volume and OI has come from conversion/reversal trading, in which shares are bought against a synthetic short position in the options. The buyer then tenders the shares in hopes of capturing part of the premium to current market price. Deadline is Aug 3rd, so the option volume is likely to return to pre-tender levels very soon.