Phil's Stock World, Stock Options Trading & Information

Daily Stock and Options Tips & Updates; Get Our Daily Newsletter Here

100KP dividend plays - FYI, I'm loving them...thanks, Phil!!! Including the $0.848/share dividend, I am up 100% on my $2.38 net entry on LYG...that's pretty cool!

- SSDirk

Phil - Wow…wow. The vision and inate grasp of the options world you posess is rather staggering. It's this type of experience that I really hope to develop. I'm afraid I still can't see the moves, but I WILL learn. I cannot thank you enough for the patience, knowledge and effort you put into this place. Please keep it going!

- Where

Phil - I'm with you just little bit longer than a month and you can not imagine how happy I am now, and not just because my P/L improved ( and I'm sure that it will be even better), but I found that the worst thing in trader's carrier is a LONELINESS. Here I found so many bright good guys, I looked for this service for years. THANK YOU AND TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOURSELF BECAUSE I PLAN TO STAY HERE AND RIDE THIS CREASY MARKET WITH YOU FOR ANOTHER 20-30 YEARS

- Tchayipov

Phil & Ephmen85: I hadn't thought about selling the covered calls. That should be the easiest strategy for me since I'm a beginner. Thanks a bunch!

- JWick1981

Phil - Another excellent teaching article - when you write like that it blows me away. Thank you! I had the ideas from earlier articles but what I didn't have was enough understanding. The familiarity of ideas through repetition, re-working, revision - over time - the variation, the pulling out of implications - it all contributes to understanding and mostly thats on the student - but a good teacher (worth their weight in gold) makes understanding a pleasure. I wanted to learn about trading options because it makes my brain feel better - fitter, healthier. Actually mostly it makes me happy to think about the trade and trading options. You are a good teacher and I know that or I wouldn't value the subscription the way I do. It pays for itself through the pleasure of understanding alone.

- Redfern1

Phil - Thanks for the welcoming gift of the POT at a buck Just paid for this month and my membership is not even 24 hours old! looking forward to many more - bk

- Bjkeck

Phil - I just referred 10 people. Last week was a 50% gainer for me. There are companies that want to sell mentoring service for thousands of dollars. This is far better of a deal with very good advice.

- Steve

Wow, Phil, we pretty much made your levels. Your levels: Dow 7,404, S&P 775, Nas 1,466, NYSE 4,839 and RUT 402 My sceen is showing: Dow 7,404, S&P 777, Nas 1,462, NYSE 4,868 and RUT 404

- Jordan

Newer member here, but just wanted to say thank you too. I've learned so much and I hope you'll be around for a long time helping us learn along the way.

- Where

Opt, I think the hardest thing is being disciplined enough to trade with you. Atleast now when I see something go in the red I know how much I'm going to loose and that I will profit somewhere else and have enough money left at the end of the day to trade again. Thanks for all your hard work! My stress levels are down 75% and I have even made a small profit in the short time I've been here

- Mopar

Phil, 26% on the week for the 20% I day-trade, and since drinking the kool-aid last fall, the whole portfolio has doubled. Have a great weekend !!

- JRW III

You guys gotta give it to phil–the voice of reason yesterday, last nite and this morning.

- Corleone

Peter D, Just a note of thanks. Eight weeks ago, I entered my first RUT strangles, when the RUT was at 625. Tomorrow, I will let them expire, with the RUT at 625 (give or take). I didn't care when the RUT went to 650, nor when it dropped to 590. Easiest, no touch money I've made in a long time.

- Judahbenhur

On Optrader's section yesterday he was asked how he works with AAPL as an investment. He replied that he just ‘plays with the covers'. I've got a separate portfolio where I use primarily this technique over the past 6 months. Up 60% The principles involved are stock selection, patience, patience, using covers to protect profits, rolling covers to maximize premium return, and exiting when covers are gone and stock price is high. Sometimes it's hard to remember where you learn to do this stuff, but much of it is from integrating principles I've learned here with thing I already knew. Thanks for the help on this, Phil and others.

- Roaster

Hey Phil - writing to thank you! First of all, and I know you have heard this a few times form some others - the portfolio updates you have done - with entries and targets and even margin reqs are invaluable! I find myself understanding what is done here IN THEORY most of the time..however, there is a much bigger difference in placing and setting up the hedges properly than just understanding…This has been eye opening for me and Ifeel like I just took a major step in trading during the last week.

- Bcfla

Thanks for your thoughts against buying BP ahead of earnings (yesterdays' member comments). It announced a loss of $3.3b and is down 3% in pre-market but still just above the bottom of the chaneel of $40-$50.

- mSquare

I have been a member of Phil's site for three years and counting, and my advice is that all investing takes time. There are o shortcuts, no secret way to riches. Same with Phil's site- you need time and patience to start benefitting fully from his advice. But it is often spot on and also very useful, especially to me as I try to keep a level head in this turbulent stock market environment.

- Jordan

Phil, I was so impressed with the personal note in the comments that I went ahead and paid for a months trial of premium that I have been on the fence for awhile about. Just reading the comments makes me already glad for the purchase.

- Smasher

Hey Phil, Your HOV suggestion about 3 months ago basically paid for my Philstockworld subscription for years to come. My average cost is about $1.

- Ether

Phil - I LOVE these futures trades at random hours! I wasnt able to get in on the 612 part but if I had it wouldve been 130$ (2.6%) on a 5k contract in less than 30 minutes. I know you have to sleep, spend time with fam, ect but Im just letting you know that your posts after hours/late at night has made people who followed them a decent chunk of change. Thank you, we appreciate it!

- Jromeha

Phil, I have the SRS 2011 $7.50 short puts you recommended awhile back. I sold them for $2.20 and now $1.51 (up 31%) although SRS has been down since inception. This was a nice mellow way to play it like you said, thanks.

- Jomptien

I did the same thing via your logic (sold puts that is). I glanced one time and they were already up 15% which is considered a good return for an overnight hold in most circles. This is PSW though and to us it's just another day…

- Kwan

I would like to thank Phil and PSW crew for the insight and assistance (even the liberals). In December I initiated long stock positions buying stock, writing calls and puts in AAPL, WFR and CHK (scaling in and out). Over the last week I have been trimming back my positions selling stock and taking out my callers and putters. I am now back to my initial 25% position that I started with in December. However this time, my cost basis on shares AAPL, WFR, and CHK is $0! With money to spare from those positions.

- Texasmotion

Way back did 20 of your suggested short BP Jan 11 26 P @ 4.3 now .85 — sold half. this am — paid for a years sub AGain!! thank you very much!

- Ban2

Personally I admire and respect you disciplined approach to investing. My style is at the extreme side of aggressive and I have to learn how to be less that way. If I yell " Let it Ride" at my house, no one says a word so I can't use that to temper my behavior. Phil has done a pretty good job of knocking some of my potential moves and as a result, I have increased my portfolio value by almost 25% since late July.

- DoubleD

Phil - I know I am small change compared to most others members, but I just wanted to let you know that during the last two weeks with the shorts you and others suggested I have 6 winners and 5 losers. My losers were small because I tried to follow your guidelines as best I could. On the other hand my winners on average were around 50%. Consequently, I am up $2000 in 14 days. Thank you for your patience and help. I think I am making progress getting rid of some of my poor trading habits of the past!

- DCalrk41

Phil: well, often you say, just for FUN, great comment, TXS, closed 2 SKF positions, one with 10 % , the other with 6 % gain,

- RMM

Joined last year and and started profitably trading options thanks to everything I have learned here. THANK YOU!!

- OnWisconsin

Hi Phil, Thanks for the free disaster hedge ideas. I implemented variations of two of them on SDS bull call spreads and EEM bear put spreads (haven't done the TZA yet) and they really hedged my short term longs nicely today. Makes it seem a lot less like gambling. You are the man (of the people)!

- Howard Roake

Phil: I loaded up big time yesterday on your suggestion of the AMZN September 75 naked puts. They are up 43%!

- Gel1

Posts Tagged ‘BBY’

How to Have a Happy and Safe New Year with Hedges

by Phil - December 31st, 2009 8:28 am

"Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving Hell with them as usual." ~ Mark Twain

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” ~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all of my readers a very happy New Year. 2009 was challenging to say the least – clearly it was the best of times and it was the worst of times but if 2009 has taught us anything it’s that there is always an opportunity for the perseverent. We went from the depths of despair in March straight into a 9-month rally of epic proportions. While we may question the wisdom of the underlying fundamentals, we cannot question the evidence of just how resilient our economy and our people really are and that, if nothing else, gives me great hope for our future.

I myself have gone from being the lone market optimist back in March (see our Crisis, Year One Review) to being one of the 11% of the remaining pessimists as the market takes back over 50% of it’s losses (I am arguing that it’s less than 50% in my Last Charts of the Decade). Whether we are, as I think, at the apex of a very normal Fibonacci retracement or whether we are at the mid stage of a full recovery back to our 2007 glory remains to be seen but for now, I can re-use the same statement I made to Members when I argued the media was too bearish in March (click on image for great video):

"Television is a powerful and emotional medium, it is very difficult to go against the will of ALL these "experts" when they get on TV and all tell you to sell (or buy) and then their TV station backs them up with bearish news and bearish guests – it’s a natural bias that develops, they aren’t going to make their own paid personalities look foolish by contradicting them with facts and dissenting opinions."

Substitute bullish for bearish and we have my quote of the day for December 31st, 2009. If you do nothing else today in the markets, at least consider the idea of establishing some hedges – just…

Tags: BBY, DXD, FAZ, GS, NWS, SDS, SNM, TWX, WMT, YRCW

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CAT-Bears Brace for Rocky Start to 2010

www.interactivebrokers.com

by Andrew Wilkinson - December 15th, 2009 4:34 pm

Today’s tickers: CAT, MS, UUP, STI, WFC, MCO, M, ROK, BBY, JAVA & HMY

CAT – Caterpillar, Inc. – Bearish option traders are bracing for potential CAT-share price erosion through expiration in February 2010. Shares edged nearly 0.75% lower in late afternoon trading to stand at $57.94. One pessimist purchased a put spread to prepare for potential declines. The transaction involved the purchase of roughly 7,000 puts at the February 55 strike for a premium of 2.35 apiece, marked against the sale of 7,000 puts at the lower February 35 strike for 49 cents premium each. The net cost of the trade amounts to 1.86 per contract. The investor responsible for the spread probably holds a long position in the underlying. Under this assumption, the trader has established downside protection, which kicks in if Caterpillar’s shares fall beneath the breakeven price of $53.14 by expiration day in February.

MS – Morgan Stanley – Analysts at Barclays Capital slashed fourth-quarter earnings estimates for Morgan Stanley to 40 cents from 90 cents today. Perhaps the bearish options activity observed on MS during the trading session was partly inspired by the significant profit-forecast revision at Barclays. Either way, investors populating Morgan Stanley’s January 2010 contract appear pretty pessimistic on the second-largest U.S. securities firm. Traders threw in the towel on MS by shedding nearly 20,000 calls at the January 31 strike for an average premium of 75 cents apiece. Some investors may be closing out previously established long call positions. Analysis of the existing open interest at that strike suggests traders are likely cutting their losses by selling the calls today. Investors abandoning bullish bets do not paint a rosy picture of where MS’s share price may settle during the first weeks of 2010.

UUP – PowerShares DB US Dollar index Bull Fund – The U.S. dollar is brimming with confidence on the first of a two-day FOMC meet in Washington and while investors are not expecting any signs of a policy change, there is certainly a firmer tone underlying the dollar in the past 72 hours or so. Option traders placed extremely bullish bets using call options on the bullish dollar index fund, whose shares currently stand 0.9% higher on the day at $22.82. Investors bought a huge chunk of 100,000 long-dated options reserving buying rights over the dollar at a fixed $24.00 before the contract expires in January 2011. That leaves…

Tags: BBY, CAT, HMY, JAVA, M, MCO, MS, ROK, STI, UUP, WFC

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Put Volume Explodes on iShares MSCI Hong Kong Index ETF

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by Andrew Wilkinson - December 2nd, 2009 4:38 pm

Today’s tickers: EWH, HPQ, M, GLD, LCC, KRE, BBY, WAG & DYAX

EWH – iShares MSCI Hong Kong Index Fund – The EWH popped onto our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner today after one investor traded 70,000 put options on the fund. Shares of the ETF are up 0.25% this afternoon to stand at $16.22. It appears the trader shed 35,000 puts at the January 14 strike for 10 cents apiece in order to partially offset the cost of purchasing 35,000 puts at the June 14 strike for 65 cents each. The net cost of the protective play amounts to 55 cents per contract. The nearer-term short put position in the January contract implies the investor does not expect shares to dip below $14.00 by expiration in less than two months. The investors stands ready to have a whopping 3,500,000 shares of the underlying put to him at $14.00 apiece in the event that the put options do land in-the-money. The long put position in the June 2010 contract suggests the trader is already long the stock. He is most likely extending downside protection on the underlying position for the next seven months before expiration. Shares of the EWH would need to fall 17% from the current price in order for downside protection to kick in beneath the breakeven point at $13.45. We note that shares of the fund have traded above $14.00 since July 15, 2009.

HPQ – Hewlett-Packard Co. – Medium-term bullish trading graced the global technology company’s February 2010 contract despite a 1% decline in HPQ shares this afternoon to $49.06. A risk reversal by one option player suggests shares could increase significantly by expiration in February. The trader sold 12,000 puts at the February 40 strike for an average premium of 27 cents apiece, and bought the same number of calls at the higher February 60 strike for 8 pennies each. The transaction yields a net credit of 19 cents per contract. The investor retains the full credit as long as HPQ’s shares remain above $40.00 through expiration day. Additional profits accumulate if the stock surges 22% higher than the current price to surpass the $60-level. The long call position probably serves more as a stop loss, or insurance policy, on the trade in the unlikely event that shares do jump more than 22% in the next three months. The reversal was more likely…

Tags: BBY, DYAX, EWH, GLD, HPQ, KRE, LCC, M, WAG

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Wrong Way Weekly Wrap-Up

by Phil - September 19th, 2009 8:28 am

I am trying to get bullish, really I am.

As I said to Members on Thursday morning in chat, like Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction: "I’m trying hard to be the (bullish) shepherd" but the data makes it hard – so very hard! Anyway, I’m not here to complain about the market forces moving against us but to review the carnage of our picks going all the way back to Sept 10th, when we decided the prior day’s beige book was not going to be enough to break out over 9,600 on the Dow. Now, with the Dow at 9,820 after testing 9,900 it’s a good idea to look back and see what we missed in this last 2.5% leg up.

On Thursday the 10th, we talked about patterns. One pattern I recommended following right in the morning post was the famous "stick save" investment. Simply buying high-delta DIA calls at about 2:30 each afternoon and selling into the pumped-up close. That was a winning play on the 10th, 11th (Fri), 14th and 16th but not the last two days, when we turned a lot more bearish – but we’ll get to that further down this review. 4 out of 5 days is pretty good for a patten and seeing it broken 3 of the past 5 days is also significant. I did promise that Thursday that we will look for more bullish opportunities once we have a clear break over our last two levels (NYSE 6,959 and S&P 1,056) and we did make those this week. If we hold it through Tuesday, it will be time and we’re going to line up some trades this weekend. True to my word on that Thursday, we chose a variety of bullish and bearish plays in Member Chat. I’m posting the plays along with suggested adjustments if needed as it’s a nice way to review our various strategies in progress – especially under "adverse" conditions.

Trade ideas of the day for Members were:

DIA $95 puts that ended up being rolled and doubled down for a net 20% gain (too much bother to detail).
SUN at $23.36, now $28.45 (up $5.09), short Oct $25 calls at $2.20, now 3.70 (down $1.50) and short the Jan $22.50 puts at $1.15, now .70 (up .45).
- Another buy/write at net $23.01/22.76, already up 17.5% so can be closed early here.
FDO short Apr $25 puts at $2.10, now

…

Tags: ABT, AMZN, BAC, BBY, BIDU, BXP, CAL, CEPH, DF, DIA, FDO, FDX, FXP, GOOG, OIH, ORCL, PALM, PARD, RIMM, SRS, SUN, USO, VZ

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Toppy Tuesday Morning

by Phil - September 15th, 2009 8:10 am

Can we break higher on this low volume?

We’ve been waiting for traders to come back from their summer breaks but no sign of them so far. Sill the market volume is at historic lows and still 80% of that volume is concentrated on a dozen financial stocks that simply get traded back and forth by robots every time the market needs a push in one direction or another.

As David Fry’s chart indicates, the only big volume stick we’ve seen in the past two months have come attached to big sell-offs. In mid-August we were "just about to break higher" but gapped down instead and then again at the end of August, we reversed our low volume "recovery" with a big sell-off. Here we are in the middle of September (that every two week thing) and THIS TIME, the analysts say it’s different. Different I guess because the volume has dropped by another 1/3 since our last fake rally.

This, of course, does not stop us from "going with the flow" as running with the bulls can be very profitable but we are hedging A LOT and very cautious in our trade set-ups as we know how fast this can all turn around. We took our short profits at yesterday’s morning dip and added a mix of long and short plays during the day. We did put our foot down on SRS and the Russell, playing the SRS to go no lower than $10.25 and the Russell not to break $600 this week and we’ll be sweating out that one this morning as the pre-market pump has already jammed the futures up 40 points since Europe’s open.

Asia was mostly flat this morning but that does little to describe the madness at the Hang Seng, which was closed for the morning due to a Typhoon and opened for just 90 minutes in the afternoon where they dropped like a rock that was tied to a rock that was wearing cement shoes into the close. Still, thanks to a 200-point gap up into the delayed open, the Hang Seng managed to finish the day down just 68 official points. As soon as the US markets closed, dollar repair crews were rushed to the scene and they managed to get it back over 91 Yen in time for Japan’s open and that helped the Nikkei stay above that critical 10,200 line we’ve been…

Tags: BBY, DIA, Dylan Ratigan, PPI, SPY, SRS, USO

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$101,674 Portfolio Update – Week 3

by Phil - September 13th, 2009 8:26 am

Slow and steady wins the race!

We had a big run and capped our gains a little early for the week by doubling up on our PSQ (short Nasdaq) calls on Thursday’s mad run. This did the job of locking in our profits but that hedge is now making up $450 of losses, which is 1/3 of all our losses for the month. Still we managed to gain $396 for the week with still just $28,537 in positions so that’s another 1% for the week, a pretty good clip…

I am happy to say that our $100K Portfolio is now live and available on WallStreetSurvivor.com at:

Open Positions: http://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/Public/Content/PhilStockWorld/Dashboard/Philstockworld.aspx

Transactions: http://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/Public/Content/PhilStockWorld/Transactions/Philstockworld.aspx

We’re actually well ahead of our cash goal as we also have $86,101 in cash along with our $28,537 in positions with $13,768 in margin devoted to some of the longer hedges we’ve sold. That leaves us with $147,935 in margin buying power and we’re going to use it to do a few "stupid option tricks" into expirations that should pick us up a little extra cash over the next 5 days and Wednesday or Friday we must expect to make our rolling moves for the current month and I’ll be sending out Alerts to Members later in the week. For now, we are very happy with all of our current positions as we have 16 winners and just 7 losers – that’s very good for a well-hedged portfolio…

There are only 6 September contracts for us to worry about and Wednesday would be the earliest day we need to make adjustments on those so we’ll concentrate today on things we can make money on tomorrow. The easiest was to start is to look at some stocks we may want to own for October and take a stab at selling some naked puts on them as we won’t be too upset if they get put to us or we’ll be happy to pocket the cash if they aren’t. We already sold the MHP October puts from last week’s Watch List but we haven’t filled the others. As with those plays, we’re not interested if we don’t get our prices:

AMZN has a great premium and selling 5 $85 calls for $1.25 and 5 $85 puts for $1.75 (any

…

Tags: AMZN, BAC, BBY, ERY, FITB, GE, HIG, PSQ, RF, RIMM, TWM, XLF

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Genworth Financial Rallies Amidst Reversal Positioning Through Options

www.interactivebrokers.com

by Andrew Wilkinson - August 12th, 2009 5:23 pm

Today’s tickers: GNW, ERTS, RCL, WFT, PETM, BBY, AKAM, KR, & FITB

GNW – Bearish option trades belie the more than 6% rally in shares of the financial security company to $8.59 during today’s trading session. It appears that one investor has spread the sale of 10,000 calls at the December 10 strike price for 1.00 apiece against the purchase of 10,000 puts at the September 7.5 strike for about 56 cents each. The bearish reversal play occurred in the midst of plain-vanilla put purchasing at the September 7.5 strike, where approximately 8,000 puts were picked up for 56 cents per contract. Perhaps investors enacting such trades are bracing for a pullback in the price of GNW by expiration in September. The long puts will begin to generate profits if the stock slips 19% lower through the breakeven point at $6.94. The investor responsible for the bearish reversal has received a net credit of 44 cents and may add to his profits if the September 7.5 strike puts land in-the-money by expiration. The short call position in the December contract leaves the investor vulnerable to potentially unlimited losses above the effective breakeven point at $10.56, unless of course the trader holds a long position in the underlying. If the trader owns the stock, then he may be near-term bearish and long-term bullish. The short call position would serve the same purpose as a covered call. If GNW trades above $10.00 by expiration, the investor may shed the position in the underlying and walk away with profits earned on the appreciation in the value of the stock. – Genworth Financial, Inc.

ERTS– Bullish reversals on the developer of video game software caught our attention today amid a rally of nearly 4% on the stock to $21.11. Investors were seen shedding puts in order to finance the purchase of out-of-the-money calls in the December contract. Approximately 2,500 puts were sold at the December 16 strike for 43 cents each, while another 2,500 puts were surrendered at the higher December 17 strike for 62 cents apiece. Traders utilized premium enjoyed on the sale of puts to get long of 5,000 calls at the December 25 strike price for an average premium of 93 cents. The average net cost of purchasing the calls amounts to about 40 cents per contract. A rally in ERTS of 20% will allow call-holders to begin to amass…

Tags: AKAM, BBY, ERTS, FITB, GNW, KR, PETM, RCL, WFT

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Option Bulls Order Calls with a Side of Fries

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by Andrew Wilkinson - July 22nd, 2009 4:43 pm

Today’s tickers: WEN, JNPR, VIX, CLX, BBY, AAPL & AXP

WEN – Despite the 2% decline in shares to $4.59 today, WEN was flooded by investors looking for bullish call options in the September contract. Approximately 9,000 calls were coveted by fans of the Frosty at the September 5.0 strike price for an average premium of 32 cents apiece. Investor’s long the calls are hoping the stock rises at least 16% through the breakeven point at $5.32 by expiration. The 10,861 option contracts exchanged on the stock today represents more than 66% of the existing open interest for WEN of 16,325 lots. We note that Wendy’s/Arby’s Group shares have not traded higher than $5.32 since April 29, 2009. – CBOE Volatility Index

JNPR – The network-equipment maker jumped onto our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner today after a four-legged bullish trade was initiated in the near-term August contract. Shares of the firm are off by more than 2% today to stand at $25.27 perhaps on news that IBM plans to sell Juniper switches and routers under its own brand name. It appears that the investor responsible for the transaction is expecting JNPR to rebound as he was seen selling put options on the stock to fund the purchase of a call spread. The sale of 9,300 puts at the August 22 strike price for about 35 cents each, in combination with the sale of 9,300 puts at the lower August 21 strike for 25 cents apiece, yielded the trader a gross premium of 60 cents. The bullish investor then looked to the August 27 strike price where he purchased 9,300 calls for an average premium of 1.10 per contract spread against the sale of 9,300 calls at the higher August 30 strike for 25 cents each. The net cost of the call spread, after factoring in the sale of the put options, amounts to just 25 cents. Thus, the individual responsible for the transaction stands to bank maximum potential profits of 2.75 if shares of JNPR can rally up to $30.00 by expiration. The stock must rally higher by about 8% before the investor begins to accumulate profits starting at the breakeven share price of $27.25. – Juniper Networks, Inc.

VIX – Investors were found wading through molasses today helped by better earnings from Apple, but disappointed by financial companies, where the sector exemplified the view that…

Tags: AAPL, AXP, BBY, CLX, JNPR, VIX, WEN

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UPS Put Action

www.interactivebrokers.com

by Andrew Wilkinson - May 12th, 2009 4:58 pm

Today’s tickers: UPS, BBY, MBI, XLF, HIG, MOS & ASML

UPS United Parcel Service, Inc. – The package delivery company, which delivers an average of more than 14.7 million pieces per day around the globe, has experienced a share price decline of more than 2.5% to $54.35. UPS appeared near the top of our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner this afternoon after one investor traded massive chunks of put options on the stock. The trader looks to be extending downside protection by establishing a multi-leg calendar spread. The now in-the-money May 55 strike price saw the sale of 36,000 puts for a premium of 1.85 apiece spread against two purchases. The first 20,000 puts were picked up at the June 55 strike price for a premium of 3.40 each while the second chunk of 20,000 put options were bought at the July 55 strike price at a cost of 4.10 to the trader. All three legs of the trade were enacted simultaneously and protect the investor – who is likely long the stock – from downward movements in the share price over the next couple of months. Other noteworthy activity on UPS occurred at the June 60 strike price where bullish individuals purchased 3,700 calls for an average premium of 45 cents apiece. Shares would need to rally by 11% from the current price and breach the breakeven point at $60.45 in order for bulls to profit on the June 60 calls by expiration.

BBY Best Buy Company, Inc. – Shares of the specialty retailer have suffered a decline of more than 3.5% to $36.75. We observed option traders taking a bearish stance on the stock today, particularly in the June contract. The June 35 strike price had traders stocking up on downside protection as some 9,000 puts were coveted for an average premium of 1.96 apiece. An additional 1,750 put options were picked up at the higher June 36 strike for a pricier 2.41 each. The pessimistic view for next month was confirmed as some 1,800 calls were sold at the June 42.5 strike price for about 81 cents per contract. Option implied volatility on Best Buy has climbed since yesterday’s reading of 54% to the current value of 62%.

MBI MBIA Inc. – The financial services firm climbed as high as $7.90 today after reporting better-than-expected first-quarter results, although the stock has seen gains erode over…

Tags: ASML, BBY, HIG, MBI, MOS, UPS, XLF

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Phil's Favorites

Jobless Claims Improve, Leading Indicators Decline: Economic Report Card

September 22nd, 2011 5:36 pm

Courtesy of John Nyaradi.

Jobless claims improve while leading indicators decline in today’s economic report card

by Wall Street Sector Selector Staff

Weekly jobless claims declined to 424,000 from last week’s 432, 000 but stubbornly stayed above the all important 400,000 level for another week.

August Leading Indicators came in at +0.3% compared to 0.5% for July, as the economy continues registering weakness.

Good news came from July Home Prices which rose to +0.8% from the previously reported +0.7%.

But the biggest economic news of the week came yesterday when the Federal Reserve said it saw “significant downside risks to the economic outlook, including strains in global financial markets.”

Global stock markets responded negatively yesterday an...

Insider Scoop

Priceline.com Trades Higher on Q1 Earnings Results (PCLN)

May 5th, 2011 5:10 pm

Courtesy of Benzinga

Shares of Priceline.com Incorporated (NASDAQ: PCLN) are trading higher in the after-hours following the release of its Q1 earnings results. Currently, shares are up 2.74%, trading at $548.60; they closed the regular session down 0.67 %, at $533.97.

The company said that its Q1 EPS came in at $2.66 on revenues of $809.3 million; this compares to the Street's estimate of $2.46 per share on revenues of $779.5 million. Revenues rose 38.6% year over year.

"In the 1st quarter, the Group benefited from strong growth in our global hotel business, particularly at Booking.com and Agoda," said Jeffery H. Boyd, Priceline President and Chief Executive Officer.

He added, "Room nights booked grew by 55.8% and our international gross bookings grew by 79% compared to prior year...

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Zero Hedge

Fukushima Explosion Update: Core Presumed Intact As Sea Water Used To Bring Temperature Down, Radiation Level At 1015 Microsieverts/Hour

March 12th, 2011 9:41 am

Courtesy of Tyler Durden

The damage control to the Fukushima explosion reported earlier is coming fast and furious. According to CNN, "the explosion at an earthquake-damaged nuclear plant was not caused by damage to the nuclear reactor but by a pumping system that failed as crews tried to bring the reactor's temperature down, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Saturday. The next step for workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant will be to flood the reactor containment structure with sea water to bring the reactor's temperature down to safe levels, he said. The effort is expected to take two days." While the government is trying to play down the threat from the explosion, it has nonetheless double the evacuation zone radius from 10 to 20 kilometers: "Radiation levels have fallen since the explosion and there is no immediate danger, Edano said. But authorities were nevertheless expanding the evacuation ...

Chart School

The Mega-Bear Quartet and L-Shaped "Recoveries"

March 12th, 2011 9:35 am

Courtesy of Doug Short

Note from dshort: I retired this chart series last summer in deference to my prefered inflation-adjusted series that aligns the S&P 500 2000 high with the Nikkei peak in 1989. However, I continue to receive requests for this version, despite the "V" shape of the the recovery since the March 2009 low. This chart series overlays the current S&P 500 with the L-shaped "recoveries" after the Dow Crash of 1929, the Nikkei 225 after Japan's 1989 bubble, and the post Tech Bubble NASDAQ. Click the chart below for a larger version and use the links to see various comparisons.

Click for a larger image

I've ...

Sabrient

Sabrient Risers - 3/12/2011

March 12th, 2011 12:00 am

Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysisVLOSTRONGBUYAn increasingly positive growth rate of past earnings, along with improving expectations for long term growth, make Valero a good prospect for high returns.KROSTRONGBUYKronos Worldwide has been gaining recognition from analysts as a good canditate for achieving higher than expected earnings along with higher overall projected valuation.SFIBUYiStar is one of the top candidates projected to achieve both higher than previously projected earnings in the short run and a higher earnings growth rate in the long run.AMATSTRONGBUYApplied Materials has been...

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Option Review

Bulls Scoop Up Sprint Nextel Corp. Calls

March 10th, 2011 4:33 pm

Today’s tickers: S, FTR, JTX & SBUX

...

OpTrader

Swing trading portfolio - week of March 7th, 2011

March 6th, 2011 11:25 pm

This post is for live trades and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current virtual trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).

We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options.

Please feel free to participate in the discussion and ask any questions you might have about this portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.

To learn more about the swing trading portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here

Optrader

Swing trading portfolio

One trade portfolio

...

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Stock World Weekly

March 6th, 2011 8:22 am

Here's the newest Stock World Weekly: Illusion Based on a Fantasy

Comments welcome... share your thoughts.

Download Newsletter 3/6/11

Stock World Weekly archives here >

...

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Pharmboy

Biotech Junkies Update and Momenta Pharma Moving Forward

March 1st, 2011 9:42 am

February is now past, and the Biotech Porfolio is loaded with winners and a miss (PLX). MRK is down a bit, but I expect that trade to recover, and one could be more agressive and double down on it, or play another round at the Jan13 $30 options for roughly the same price. Below is the summary, and note the grey boxes are ones that did not fill. I am still a fan of BMRN, and like DEPO as well. Now let's look at a few others.

Table 1. PSW Biotech Plays Since January 2011

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Our newest play is Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA), who is pursuing a three-part business model which includes complex generic equivalents in partnership with the Sandoz division of Novartis, proprietary compounds, and follow-on- biologics (FOB). It seems that this company is tied up in competition/litigation wit...

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