Friday’s Vital Data: Apple Inc. (AAPL), Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) and Ford Motor Company (F)

Advertisement

Wall Street is in for another weak start this morning, and even strong earnings results from Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) won’t be enough to turn the tide, with investors still debating their options following inaction from the Bank of Japan.

Friday’s Vital Data: Apple Inc. (AAPL), Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) and Ford Motor Company (F)There is a veritable flood of economic data stateside, however, with March personal income, consumer spending and core inflation and the April Chicago purchasing managers survey and consumer sentiment set for release later this morning.

Heading into the open, U.S. stock futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average have slipped 0.08%, with S&P 500 futures down 0.14% and Nasdaq-100 futures lower by 0.28%.

Options volume was extremely brisk on Thursday, hitting a near-term high for total activity as Amazon and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) drove speculation. After hitting a multi-month low on Tuesday, however, the CBOE single-session equity put/call volume ratio continued higher on Thursday to arrive at 0.77, with puts gaining favor. The 10-day moving average arrived at 0.67.

In equity options news, Apple options traders jumped on news that billionaire investor Carl Icahn sold his entire stake in AAPL due to concerns of Chinese interference. Meanwhile, Amazon.com traders flooded the stock with call options ahead of last night’s quarterly report — a move that was clearly a smart money play. Finally, Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) also saw heavy call volume after the company bested Wall Street’s first-quarter earnings target.

Friday’s Vital Options Data: Apple Inc. (AAPL), Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), and Ford Motor Company (F)

Apple Inc. (AAPL)

Carl Ichan recently sold off all of his AAPL stock holdings. When asked if China was the reason for his exodus of his AAPL position, told CNBC, “That is the main reason that, yeah, I got out.” Ichan said that he didn’t know much about Apple’s relationship with China’s “benevolent dictatorship,” and that made it hard for him to continue investing in the company.

AAPL stock has now shed 18% since mid-April, with the heaviest losses following a disappointing quarterly earnings report and Ichan’s exodus. Options traders have jumped all over AAPL stock in recent days, with more than 2.1 million shares trading on the security on Thursday. Call volume is slowly dwindling, dropping to just 54% of Thursday’s total volume.

Looking ahead to monthly May contracts, AAPL is trading well below all major call open interest strikes, with the nearest being May $95 strike with OI of 7,500 contracts. Put OI, meanwhile is rising below AAPL stock, with particular attention being paid to the May $92.50 strike (13,000 contracts) and the May $90 strike (19,000 contracts).

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)

AMZN stock is red hot this morning, with the shares up more than 12% premarket to hover near $675. Amazon.com posted blowout first-quarter results last night, banking a profit of $1.07 on $29.1 billion in revenue. The results blew past Wall Street’s expectations for earnings of 58 cents per share and revenue of $27.99 billion.

Options traders appeared to have been caught somewhat flat-footed heading into the event, as calls only accounted for 55% of the more than 309,000 contracts traded on AMZN yesterday. What’s more, AMZN’s put/call open interest ratio trended near the upper half of its annual range.

With AMZN set to open north of $675, the shares will have easily outstripped weekly April 29 series put OI, with peak open interest totaling 2,100 contracts at the deep-out-of-the-money $600 strike. Peak call OI for April, meanwhile still lies overhead at the $700 strike, totaling roughly 2,700 contracts.

Ford Motor Company (F)

Ford was another winner in the earnings confessional yesterday, posting stronger-than-expected first-quarter earnings of 68 cents per share on revenue of $37.7 billion. Wall Street was looking for a profit of 48 cents per share on revenue of $35.7 billion.

F stock options traders rushed to call options following the report, with these bullish bets accounting for 82% of Thursday’s total volume of 367,000 contracts. If F can hold onto its perch north of $14 through the close today, the nearly 35,000 April 29 series $14 strike calls would finish in the money. There are another 11,000 calls at the $14 strike in the May series, with 10,850 call contracts open at the May $14.75 strike.

As of this writing, Joseph Hargett did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

More From InvestorPlace


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2016/04/fridays-vital-data-apple-inc-aapl-amazon-com-inc-amzn-ford-motor-company-f/.

©2024 InvestorPlace Media, LLC