Options were more active on Wednesday, even though stock market volumes were anemic once again. The large AAPL call options trades were the talk of the town.
1. AAPL – Buyer of 20k of the Oct 675 calls for $21.30, and buyer of 10k of the Oct 700 calls for $14.75. We detailed the large nature of those trades in yesterday’s midday post. Call options were twice as active as puts in AAPL, and the stock closed at its highest level since October 2012. Monday is the first full trading day for which AAPL will trade according to its announced 7-to-1 stock split.
2. WAG – Massive call volume in Walgreen’s, which has been on an absolute tear over the past year, and is already up 30% so far in 2014. Trader rolled the July 67.5 calls, selling nearly 38k at 7.76 to close, to buy 60k of the Oct 72.5 calls for 5.82 to open. Stock closed at a new all-time high, but call buyer clearly expects more upside (break-even on the October calls is $78.32).
3. GM – Huge options volume as GM touched its 200 day moving average for the first time since early March, after a strong monthly sales number earlier this week. The Jun21st 37 calls and the Sept 39 calls both traded over 40k, and call options traded more than 10x the average 1 month volume. $38 is the spot to watch on the upside.
4. DIS – DIS continues to be one of the best performing mega cap stocks, up 10% now year-to-date. There was a pretty massive roll in calls up and out – one trader sells 25k of the Jan15 80 calls at 7.
5. IEF – IEF is a bond ETF that seeks to track Treasury bonds in the 7-10 year maturity range. Buyer of 44,760 of the Sept 104/106 call spreads for 0.45 to open just before the close. Big bet on higher Treasuries over the next 3 months after the pullback over the past week.