Too Many Options: $XHB Put Spreads Active

by Enis November 12, 2012 5:40 pm • Commentary

ETFs were more active than single stocks today in options land; here are the top trades:

  1. XHB – First large put spread traded in the morning.  Trader paid $0.81 for 10k of the March 24 / 20 put spread.  Second trade was another put spread buyer, this time buying 21k of the Jan13 24 / 22 put spread, paying $0.42.  With XHB down for the 5th straight day, some holders clearly looking for protection.
  2. FXI – FXI had remained strong until last Wednesday, and is down 4% from its highs since then.  Someone rolled their long Nov 37 calls out to the Dec 38 calls, paying $0.25 for the privilege, 61k times.
  3. GLD – Decent sized notional trade in GLD this morning.  Someone bought 5k of the Dec 165 puts paying $2.00, spending $1m in premium for that protection.
  4. UTX – The trader who had bought the Nov 75 / 72.5 / 70 put fly ahead of earnings unwound the trade today at $0.37, 12k x 24k, taking a small loss if my memory serves me correctly.
  5. MET – Someone paid 0.20 for 10k of the March 42 calls.  Stock is down 15% in 3 weeks.
  6. FB – Trader paid $1.625 for 5k of the Dec 20 / 21 call stupid (which means the trader bought both the Dec 20 and the Dec 21 calls, for a combined price of $1.625)
  7. WMB – Large protection trade went up, with someone buying 24k of the Feb 26 puts paying 0.47.  It also looks like there was someone who bought back the Nov 32 puts for 0.45, and sold the Dec 31 puts at 0.85.
  8. MRO – Similar structure to the WMB Nov 32 / Dec 31 put roll.  In MRO, trader bought 42k of the Nov 30 puts to close at 0.26, and sold 42k of the Dec 29 puts to open for 0.56
  9. HD – The Nov 60 puts traded more than 30k times, with the bulk of the trading coming as a roll against the Dec 57.5 puts, which traded more than 20k times.
  10. S – This stock was very active in the options market in early October as it first was speculated as a PCS buyer, then received the Softbank offer itself.  Since then though, it’s traded in a very tight range between 5.50 and 5.75.  Today, someone sold 23k of the Feb 6 calls at 0.08, to buy 21k of the Jan14 7 calls for 0.20, rolling out their bullish bet.