Tuesday’s Notable Options Activity: $XLF, $FXI, $GPRO, $HTZ, $GPOR, $CLF

by Enis October 8, 2014 7:42 am • Commentary

Options volumes were very light considering the 1.5% move lower in the indices yesterday.  A few large ETF trades stood out, along with some specific story stocks.

1.  XLF – Buyer of 42,500 of the Jan15 21 puts for 0.33 near the close.  XLF closed below the $23 support level that traders have been watching ever since the financial sector’s breakout to new highs in late August.  XLF has not traded below $21 since February.

2.  FXI – Calls were very active, with the Dec 42 calls trading 47,600 for 0.36 in the morning.  That print was followed by 47k of the Dec 42.5 calls trading at 0.30 about 30 minutes later.  Closer to noon, there was a buyer of 25k of the Dec 41 calls for 0.53.  FXI’s high so far this year is $42.56 from early September.  The China equity ETF is now unchanged year-to-date.

3.  GPRO – GPRO hit a new all-time high before reversing to close flat on the session.  The Oct18th 80 calls traded over 20k, and the Jan15 65 calls traded over 10k, both trades from market makers looking to game the high borrow cost (for more details on the rationale of these deep-in-the-money call trades, read Mike Khouw’s highly informative post from last week).  Separately, we laid out a couple of bearish options trade ideas on GPRO in a Name That Trade post last week.

4.  HTZ – Hertz sold off to its lowest level since November, and the stock has declined 30% since late August.  The Nov 23 put traded over 27k at an average price of 1.63 throughout the session.  I wrote a Name That Trade post discussing HTZ last week.

5.  GPOR – GPOR closed below $50 for the first time since July 2013.  The Jan15 52.5 / 57.5 call spread traded 20k times for 1.60 in the afternoon.

6.  CLF – CLF hit a new 10 year low, and puts were very active.  The Nov 8 puts traded over 19k at an average price of 1.207, in what looks like mostly selling to close, and the Jan15 11 puts traded over 16k at an average price of 3.43.