The most exciting trading was primarily in earnings stocks.
1. CTRX – Citrix Systems, 10 times average option volume. Calls to puts 4.4:1. IV30 was up almost 10 points. Earnings after the bell today. Looks like a lot of time spreads happening with a 19 point skew between the Feb and Mar at-the-money options.
2. KERX – another crazy day with 85K options trading, stock up 38%. Yesterday the company announced successful Phase 3 results for their drug Zerenex for dialysis patients.
3. DELL – big day with 165K options trading on the day as a dealReporter article stated that Silverlake might pay around $15. Someone bought 19,661 Feb16 15 calls for $.07, there seemed to be a price variation. 19K Feb16 14 calls traded on the day as well. IV30 was up another 5.6 points to 45.
4. RIMM – heavy volume again with almost 340K options trading and IV30 up 4.5%. Someone traded the Mar 10/12/14 put butterfly 1000 times. The company is hosting an event in NYC tomorrow to unveil the new Blackberry 10.
5. IWM – iShares Russell 2000 Index – a 4 way spread went up in the Mar16 82, 84, 85, 87 puts 16,000 times. All lines have sufficient open interest.
6. PFE – an insane number of dividend spreads went up with 1,727,049 options changing hands.
7. FB – high option volume day with earnings tomorrow after the close. The Feb16 30 puts and 31 calls traded with the Mar16 30 puts and 31 calls at least 4ooo by 4000 by 6000 by 5200 times. The Mar 28 puts traded a 12,555 lot in one trade and over 19,000 in total on the day. Mar regular vol is up 4 points today.
8. BAX – the Apr 62.5 puts traded with the May 72.5 calls over 15K times. Seems to be opening. The prints were revised so hard to read, but possibly selling both.
9. VMW – down 21.5% on earnings and many downgrades. Over 72K options traded versus an average of 6K.
10. AMZN – earnings after the bell. 200K more options traded than the average. Looks like there was some selling of time spreads, selling the Feb01 weekly 270 straddle to buy the Feb16 monthly. Stock plunged down to 260 into the close and in after hours trading is up around 280. You have to love AMZN. Like literally you have to.
11. AAPL – was up almost 2% today. Option volume was below average with 500K+ options trading. Calls to puts 1.6:1.