Calls were much more active than puts among single stocks, led by YHOO ahead of today’s Alibaba IPO.
1. YHOO – Options traded around 3x the average 1 month volume. The largest single print was a buyer of 15k x 30k of the Nov 46 / 50 1×2 call spread for a 0.01 credit. That trade does not lose money unless YHOO is above $54 on Nov expiration. We’ve seen several 1×2 call spreads in the past few days as options traders take advantage of the inverted upside skew in YHOO, which we discussed in this CotD post from last week.
2. FXI – Seller of 47,600 of the Dec 42 calls at 0.78 to open. That’s after someone sold 46k of the Dec 42.5 calls on Wednesday. FXI made a 3 year high of $42.56 earlier this month, but has sold off back below the $42 resistance level in the past 2 weeks.
3. SLB – Buyer of 24k of the Feb 115 calls for 2.05 to open. SLB’s all-time high of $118.76 was set on July 1st. SLB’s next earnings report is in mid-October, and the stock is still up 16% year-to-date despite the selloff of the past 2 months.
4. MT – Risk reversal traded, with someone selling around 20k of the Dec 13 puts at 0.13 to buy around 20k of the Dec 16 calls for 0.41, paying 0.28 for the risk reversal. MT has lagged the other steel stocks in the past month, and has not traded above $16 since mid-May.
5. BAC – The financials sector hit a new yearly high this week, and BAC touched $17 for the first time since early April. Calls were active, with nearly 80k of the weekly 17 calls trading at an average price of 0.12, and around 40k of the Oct18th 17 calls trading for an average price of 0.445.
6. C – Another large cap bank with active options yesterday. The Oct18th 52.5 call was the most active line, trading over 17k at an average price of 1.60. C hit its highest level since January, and is 3% away from its 52 week high of $55.28.