Thursday’s Notable Options Activity
Here is some generally directional, untied options activity that caught my eye during Thursday’s trading:
1. MCD - saw a bullish roll. When the stock was 96 a trader sold to close 43,000 March 97 calls at .75 and bought to open 25,000 June 97.50 calls for 3.20
2. NTAP - saw an opening buyer of puts,. When the stock was 37.42 a trader paid .62 for 17,000 April 36 puts.
3. USO - saw a bearish roll,. When the WTI Oil etf was 17.45 a trader sold to close 13,000 June 15 puts at .72 and bought to open 13,000 June 17 puts for 1.45. Put volume was nearly 3x that of calls on Thursday, with the June 15 puts most active with 26,000 trading on the day, followed by 16,800 of the April 13 puts.
4. NKE - when the stock was 95.64 a trader paid 15 cents for the April 10th weekly 94.50 / 91 1×2 put spread to open. This trade breaks-even at 94.35 on the downside, with gains up to 3.35 between 94.35 and 87.65 with the max gain of 3.35 at 91. The company reports heir fiscal Q3 results a week from today after the close. The options market is implying about a 4% one day move which is shy of the 5% average over the last four quarters. Read more here.
5. MBLY - interesting trade went up when the stock was $40. It looks like an investor bought a put spread collar, where they sold 2500 June 44 calls at 2.45 and bought the June 37 / 28 put spread for 2.55, 2500x, paying 10 cents for the package. I suspect this trade is seeking protection for a long position of 250,000 shares. The investor participates on the long side between $40 and $44, but stock is called away at $44, up 10%, but has losses of the stock between $40 and $37, has protection between $37 and $28 on the downside. If the stock is below $28 the trader suffers loses below, but has mitigated $9 of downside risk.
6. SGMS - saw a bullish roll when stock was 13.48. A trader sold to close 15,000 April 15 calls at .45 and bought to open 20,000 Oct 15 calls for 2.45
7. MOS - on March 4th I highlighted some opening put buying in the April 50 puts:
MOS seeing some opening put buying,when stock was $52.58 a trader paid .54 for 5,000 April 50 puts to open. The stock is 3.5% off of the 52 week highs made last week, but still up 13% on the year. They are not expected to report earnings again until early May missing April expiration
The stock is now down 10% from the levels where that put buying occurred, yesterday closing down 11% from the 52 week highs and now only up 3% on the year. When the stock was $48 a trader paid .59 for 10,000 April 45 puts to open.
Chart of the Day – $BAC To The Death Cross (1)
MorningWord 3/12/15: Mosaic Patterns – $INTC, $MSFT (1)
Wednesday’s Notable Options Activity: $AAPL, $EA, $GLW (1)
This post by Dan Nathan (@riskreversal) originally appeared on RiskReversal.com
