Too Many Options: $INTC $COH $DG $AOL $VIX $EEM $IWM $AAPL

by Dan January 28, 2014 4:29 pm • Commentary

Below is our list of the most interesting untied stock, etf and index options activity on the day:

1.  INTC – a trader sold 25,000 Jan 15 30/32 call spreads at .21 to close.

2. COH – large trade tied to stock where a trader bought the Jan15 52.50 / 35 1×2 put spread 10,000 by 20,000x for 6.00 vs buying 350,000 shares of stock for 48.85.

3. DG – trader rolled down and out some puts selling 15k Jan 31st 57 puts at .53 to close and bought 17,000 March 55 puts for 1.60 to open.

4. AOL – buyer pays 4.70 for 11k AOL July 50 calls, and helped finance by selling 5500 July 41 puts at 2.50 both to open, also sold to close 4400 April 55 calls at 1.55….looks like the trader rolled a bullish thesis, but this trade has a very different risk profile than just long calls, far more aggressive,and rolled down.

5. VIX – After seeing a large seller of the Feb 22 calls yesterday, there was a buyer today of the Apr 23 calls buying a total of 90,000 for .925

6. EEM – saw closing sellers of near the money near dated puts with sellers of the Feb 39 puts, 15,000 at 1.25 to close

7. IWM – it appeared that one trader was looking for near term upside in the small cap etf, with new highs by Feb expiration as 75, 000 of the Feb 118 calls were bought to open for .23 and 75,000 Feb 119 calls were bought to open for 13 cents.  These are ovbiously low premium trades that could offer a ton of leverage in the event of a breakout to new highs in the coming weeks.

8. AAPL – Close to a million contracts traded with the call to put ratio at 1.6 : 1. Normal volume is under a half a million contracts. The majority of the action was in the Jan31 weeklies expiring this Friday with the lines seeing the most actin being the 510 calls and 500 puts.