Precious metals under severe selling pressure again, but some interesting upside bets in the miners right near the close, essentially someone buying lottery tickets. Funny strike selection though, as I’d rather just buy fewer contracts of much lower strikes.
- ABX – Buyer of 250k of the Jan14 80 calls for 0.07
- NEM – Buyer of 200k of the Jan14 90 calls for 0.10
- GG – Buyer of 156k of the Jan14 80 calls for 0.10
- STZ – IV30 is up another 16 points to 71, well above anywhere it has traded in the past two years. Another high volume day with 115K options trading. The July 32.5/40 call spread traded over 22K times. Also the Apr 37.5/42.5 call spread traded 7500 times.
- CHTP – Chelsea Therapeutics – upgraded to a buy by Needham & Co today. Stock is up a dollar to $1.85 and there was a seller of 15K Sep 1 puts at $.20 opening.
- IWM – higher than average option volume today. The Mar28 weekly 80/85/90 put butterfly traded 20,000 times so 20K/40K/20K. This is a bearish butterfly that reaches max profit with the index at $85.
- GLD – 7000 of the Mar16 164 calls traded for $.10.
- JOY – was up as much $4 today, ending up above $65. IV30 is up again another 5 points. Upside call buyers with the majority in Mar16 70’s and 72’s. And a lot of buying and selling on the Mar16 62.5 puts.
- GM – Someone bought the Jun 35 calls, paid .15 for 23,700
- HAL – Someone sold 40k of the Jan14 40 puts at 3.35 in the morning. Stock is up almost 40% in the past 3 months.