Carl Icahn Adds Take Two Interactive (TTWO) Shares Again

by Insider Zone - February 10th, 2010 11:16 am

Tags: Carl Icahn, Take Two Interactive, TTWO

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Mixed Sentiment on BAC Pits Bulls Against Bears

by Andrew Wilkinson - December 4th, 2009 4:11 pm

Today’s tickers: BAC, XRX, XLF, CAR, XLU, BIG, SLM, TTWO, MRVL & TSN

BAC – Bank of America Corp. – Investors employed two contradictory option strategies in the February contract on Bank of America today. One trader initiated a large bearish risk reversal while the other put on a bullish call spread. BAC’s shares rallied 3.5% this afternoon to $16.30. The pessimistic investor appears to have sold 30,000 in-the-money call options at the February 15 strike for 1.74 apiece in order to purchase 30,000 puts at the same strike for 84 cents each. The reversal results in a net credit of 90 cents per contract to the trader. Perhaps this individual expects shares to decline beneath the $15-level by expiration so he may retain the full 90 cent credit on the trade. Bullish trading in the same February 2010 contract suggests shares are set to rally higher in the next few months. An optimistic investor purchased 10,000 calls at the February 17 strike for 89 cents each, and sold the same number of calls at the higher February 19 strike for 34 cents apiece. The net cost of the spread amounts to 55 cents per contract. Maximum potential profits of 1.45 are available to the investor if shares increase more than 16.5% from the current price to a new 52-week high of $19.00 by expiration in February.

XRX – Xerox Corp. – One investor utilized the risk reversal strategy in order to take a long-term bullish stance on Xerox. Shares moved 1% higher this afternoon to $7.85. It looks like the trader sold 20,000 puts at the January 2011 7.5 strike for a premium of 1.15 each to partially finance the purchase of 20,000 calls at the same strike for 1.60 apiece. The net cost of the reversal amounts to 45 cents per contract. The investor profits if shares surpass the breakeven price of $7.95 within the next 12 months to expiration.

XLF – Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF – Shares of the XLF rallied 0.75% in afternoon trading to stand at $14.46. Bullish options activity on the fund suggests shares are likely to appreciate within the next several months. Optimistic investors purchased 69,000 in-the-money call options at the March 14 strike for an average premium of 1.36 per contract. XLF shares must rise 6% from the current price before profits accumulate above the breakeven point at $15.35. Shares last…

Tags: BAC, BIG, CAR, MRVL, SLM, TSN, TTWO, XLF, XLU, XRX

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Thrilling Thursday Morning – Beijing Bop

by Phil - September 3rd, 2009 8:28 am

Hey Ho, let’s go!

That is, of course, what residents of Macau are required to chant every morning in honor of Stanley Ho, who held the monopoly on casinos in China until 1992.  This morning it turns out Macau’s economy contracted by 13.7% in Q2, it’s 3rd consecutive quarter of shrinkage.  It’s possible that the restrictions placed on civil servants in 2008 to stop them from gambling and to curb money laundering has caused much of the decline why is the decline accelerating if things are so good in China?  One thing about Macau is that all the US businesses that are now there make it harder for the Chinese government to pad the statistics and, taken at face value, Maccau is underperfoming the rest of China by 22%.

This is worth noting today as China is leading the market bounce as the vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said the authorities will promote a “stable and healthy” market, tempering investor concern that the government wants to curb equity and property speculation. Ministers from the Group of 20 nations are likely to suggest the global economy is healing when they meet in London this weekend, while the European Central Bank probably will keep interest rates at a record low today.  The Shangai composite index ran right up to the 5% rule today and has pulled a turnaround in global equities.  As noted in David Fry’s chart, we were oversold and due for a little bounce anyway.   

As noted by Ben over in our Chart School section, copper has climbed back into the "stupid zone" on that news but still has a ways to go before getting stupid enough to short again.  We’ll be keeping an eye on the copper miners like PCU, FCX and RTP as well as BHP, who got a nice pop on a UBS upgrade this morning but it’s a little early to short until we see jobs reports today and tomorrow.  

This is not surprising to us as we read the Fed minutes yesterday and the greenest shoot they could find was that things were picking up in other countries, a favorite ploy we discussed in Monday’s post as the Shanghai was falling 6.7% that day.  Fortunately, we were playing bullish into the close as we know how this game works and I had said to members just ahead of the Fed, at…

Tags: ABX, BEAT, DIA, DIS, HMY, RT, STX, TTWO, UNG

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Volatility Bursts After Take-Two Reports Smaller Loss and Phil Davis Picks Them

by Andrew Wilkinson - September 2nd, 2009 5:56 pm

Today’s tickers: TTWO, ORCL, URBN & GG

TTWO - The maker of the “Grand Theft Auto” series of video games surged more than 5.5% during the session to arrive at the current price of $10.75. The software developer reported a loss of 66 cents per share for the third-quarter, which was narrower than the 68 cent loss expected by some analysts. Options action in the December contract appears to be the work of an investor selling volatility by enacting a short straddle. It seems the trader put on the trade by shedding 5,000 calls at the December 10 strike price for a premium of 1.60, and then simultaneously selling 5,000 puts at the same strike, receiving a premium of 1.10 per contract. The gross premium enjoyed on the transaction amounts to 2.70. The trader will retain the full 2.70 premium if shares settle at $10.00 by expiration in December. Because the trader now holds short positions in both calls and puts, he is vulnerable to losses if shares surpass the upper breakeven point at $12.70 by expiration, or if shares slip beneath the lower breakeven price of $7.30. Option implied volatility plummeted from yesterday’s reading of 83% to the current value of 57% following third-quarter earnings for TTWO. – Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. –

ORCL - Investor demand for December contract put options caught our eye this morning amid a 1% decrease in shares of the software company to the current price of $21.79. Perhaps some traders have decided to take cautiously bearish stances on the stock after news reports revealed that the completion of Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems (JAVA) could be delayed by the European Commission (EC). The commission’s deadline to rule on the deal is this Thursday. However, the EC could launch an investigation that may take as many as four months, according to some reports. Plain-vanilla put buying was employed at the December 21 strike price where about 5,000 lots were picked up for an average premium of 1.30 apiece. Volume at the lower December 20 strike surpassed 19,000 contracts as traders appeared to have purchased 15,000 married put options for an average premium of 95 cents each. The purchase of shares of the underlying stock in conjunction with protective put options suggests that some investors expect the stock to appreciate by expiration in December. The puts provide downside protection on the long position in case shares decline…

Tags: GG, ORCL, TTWO, URBN

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Which Way Wednesday – Fed Minutes Might Help

by Phil - September 2nd, 2009 8:26 am

Wheee what a ride!

I don’t think we could have had a better day as the move up allowed us to place our bear plays (we went naked on our DIA $98 puts right at the top at 10 am) and the only fear we had was the morning data but by 10:10 I sent out an Alert to Members reviewing the bullish-looking data but then concluding: "Still this should give us a big boost with volume still light at 30M at 10am.  Unless we break 9,600 with some authority, this should just be another shorting opportunity."  We were still concerned about good Auto Sales numbers boosting us back up but they were actually a series of disappointments all day long.

As David Fry points out in his morning post: "Most trading systems don’t have a “feel” component and mine doesn’t either. The only logical thing which we’ve commented on repeatedly as have others is light volume and how the news hasn’t jived with reality. And, recently, investors have been selling good news versus buying bad news as before."  This is why PSW always stresses the fundamentals in stock trading.  The market can trade against them for quite some time but, eventually, the true value will set you free (and often can make you a very nice profit!).  I’ve had a very tough month in August pointing out the the news hasn’t "jived with reality" and suddenly we have gone from feeling overly conservative to being the only well-positioned people around – in cash, with plenty of winning puts and ready for another round of bottom fishing with the VIX right back at 30, which gives us exactly what we need to run our favorite plays.

We still have tons of cash in our $100,000 Portfolio and I’ll be initiating some buy/writes this week.  I already proposed one for TTWO after last night’s earnings but now it looks like I’m not the only one who thought they looked pretty good and we’re not going to chase – there are, once again, plenty of fish in the sea!  The last time we ran a Buy List was the week of July 6th and if you want to see what an actual list that goes 18 for 18 with an average upside of over 25% looks like, you can check that week’s wrap-up, which has a lot…

Tags: CHINA, DIA, DIS, DXD, Oil, RT, SDS, SPWRA, SPY, TTWO, USO, WFR, XLF

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600-Point Weekly Wrap-Up: Selling High

by Phil - July 19th, 2009 12:01 pm

Holy cow, what a week!

It is hard to believe that last weekend I wrote: "You can hardly find anyone who doesn’t think we’re going back to the March lows.  I stand by my statement to Members in yesterday morning’s Alert where I said:  "It’s ridiculous for the Dow to go back to 7,500 and ridiculous for the S&P to go back to 800.  While it’s easy to make squiggly lines on a chart show 10% drops ahead (which seems like a normal 50% retrace of the gains overall) I just think it’s dead wrong from a valuation perspective so I’m not inclined to play it, especially when those valuations are about to slap you in the face over the next few weeks.  Maybe I’m wrong and maybe earnings will suck and Q2 will be a miss and guidance will be lower but right now I say – Show me the misses."

Here we are, just 7 days later and I found myself writing an article about the ridiculous media cheerleading that went on last week.  How did the MSM go from 100% bearish to 100% bullish at the stoke of Monday?  Well, according to Cramer, it was Whitney, Whitney, Whitney and the logic seems to be that, since she called the problems in the financials early on, she MUST be right by calling an end to the problems now.  Of course what Whitney actually said was the banks should have a good quarter as the government pushes for massive mortgage refinancing (all those 1% fees really add up!) and she also said she sees unemployment shooting up another 35% to 13% or higher but hey – at least she said something positive about the banks and that’s all the media needed to hear to tear up the previous week’s entire playbook and switch sides so completely, you have to review the tape just to be sure we didn’t imagine the whole doomed, "head and shoulders" outlook of the week before.

What did I have to say about all this nonsense last weekend?  I was emphatic, and I’m usually not, and I said for those who would listen: "So here we are, back at the bottom of the trading range I predicted back in March and even as far back as November, when I said that, based on the fundamentals the crash should…

Tags: AAPL, BPOP, CHKI, DIA, FAS, FAZ, FXP, GLD, GOOG, GS, INTC, JPM, MCD, MOS, OIH, QID, SNDK, SRS, TASR, TNK, TTWO, VIX

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