Silver Strong, Expiration Quiet

by OptionsZone Experts | April 15, 2011 2:38 pm

Your intraday options trading[1] update.

High Options Volume by Strike

Expiration blues,  or is that expiration snooze.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: SPY[2]) is dominating options trading, holding the top three slots. Most active strike is the SPY Jun11 145 Call with last of .06 trading 198,854 contracts, followed by the SPY Apr 11 131 Put down .34 and last of .02. 135,592 contracts traded. The SPY Apr11 132 Put is down .70 to 12 with 97,051 contracts traded.

Citigroup (NYSE: C[3]) with the C Apr 11 4.5 Call trading last at .01 with 78,284 contracts, and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC[4]) May11 12 Put last of .09 seeing 68,905 contracts. Also BAC Apr11 13 Puts offered at .12 with 64,689 traded. Stock is at 12.93 after reporting quarterly profits down 36%. Those 13 Puts still might pull through. Or will we close exactly at 13?

“At the money strikes get a lot of play. It may be someone buying a ‘lottery ticket.’ Or someone closing out a position very cheaply,” said Luke Rahbari, partner with Stutland Volatility Group.

Rahbari said that options trading[5] today has been pretty quiet as many traders already modified positions earlier this week in preparation for expiration Friday. However, trading remains strong in such funds as the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE: GLD[6]) and the iShares Silver Trust (NYSE: SLV[7]).

“We were long some out-of-the-money silver calls but it went through that strike and we sold them. We did well. But I’m surprised at the continued upside move,” said Rahbari.

SLV had total options volume this morning of 373,133 as it rises .47 to 41.5.

Major Stock Volume Movers

Primerica (NYSE: PRI[8]) is down .72 on volume of 7.9 million. Citigroup announced yesterday the public offering of 12 million shares of PRI common stock held by a C subsidiary. To be priced at $22.75

Ku6 Media (NASDAQ: KUTV[9]) up 1.06 or 25% to 5.13 on 2.4 million shares. It’s an online Chinese video company. Hauppauge Digital (NASDAQ: HAUP[10]) up .38 to 2.26 on a little more than a million shares.

Find more option analysis and trading ideas at Options Trading Strategies[11].

Stocks/Underlying – Big Daily Change in Option Volume

Hub Group (NASDAQ: HUBG[12]) sees option volume of 1,450, up over 6,000%. Benzinga says that someone bought 1,408 May11 35 Puts for 65 cents. HUBG at 38.59, up .36. Cabot Microelectronics (NASDAQ: CCMP[13]) options trade 5,154 contracts as stock rises .22 to 48.78. Cabot supplies polishing slurries and CMP pads. I read somewhere that was hot these days, maybe it was on Benzinga. American Eagle Outfitters (NYSE: AEO[14]) gets options volume of 34,637, as stock rises .038 to 16.02

Stocks – High Put/Call Ratio

Regional bank firms continue showing in this negative indicator. The Regional Bank HLDRs (NYSE: RKH[15]) rises .24 to 84.97 but P/C ratio is at 372.59. Banco Bradesco (NYSE: BBD[16]) sees its P/C at 217.91, and H and R Block (NYSE: HRB[17]) rises to 17.09 and the P/C hits 190.43.

Stocks/Underlying – High Option Volume

The SPDR S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY[2]) sees volume of 1.8 million option contracts on expiration Friday as it rises .59 to 132.15. The S&P 500 Index Options (CBOE: SPX) jumps nice 6.51 to 13,221.03 and volume hits 408,680 contracts.

The CBOE Volatility Index (CBOE: VIX[18]) is active with the index down .95 to 15.32, as options on the VIX trade 250,140 contracts.

Burney Simpson is the managing editor of InvestorPlace options pages.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2011/04/mostly-quiet-expiration-as-slv-trades-strong-spy-slv-vix-bac-c/

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