Saturday, May 18, 2024
The regional banking failures continue, with First Republic getting gobbled up by JP Morgan Chase (JPM) and now PacWest (PACW) searching for strategic options. That means the company is looking for ways out of the current situation and will likely result in a merger or acquisition with a bigger bank. At least one trader may […]
Crocs (CROX) posted earnings last week and the stock dropped about 15% after the fact. The company posted better than expected revenues for Q1 but Q2 guidance was disappointing. However, an options trader may be thinking that the selloff was overdone. This trader appears to have purchased a very bullish ratio call spread in CROX […]
While options block trades can potentially provide insight into what the smart money is doing, it’s impossible to know for sure what the goal of a big trade is. For instance, a 22,000-lot call spread expiring in October appears to have been purchased in iShares 20+ Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) options. This would seem to […]
Options block trades can be interesting tools to gauge market expectations, even if you don’t know exactly what the purpose of the trade is. For instance, a big put spread traded last week in iShares US Real Estate ETF (IYR). The trade occurred on the same day that lower housing prices were reported across the […]
Globalstar (GSAT) is a satellite communications company. The stock price is under $1, but the company has a market value of almost $2 billion. Last week, an options trader seemingly purchased a block of 10,000 calls in GSAT that expire in July. This could be a bet on earnings next month or simply a bullish […]
Investors never know for sure if a company is going to post better earnings results than expected. That’s why there are always earnings surprises. However, that doesn’t keep traders from making educated guesses. In the case of Amazon (AMZN), a trader recently purchased 17,000 bullish call spreads that expire the day after earnings come out. […]
ETFs can often make for effective covered call trades because the price tends to be more stable than single stocks. In the case of SPDR S&P Metals & Mining ETF (XME), the stock has been range bound for much of the last six months. From a block trade we saw last week, a trader is […]
Natural gas prices have been in a significant down trend since the middle of last year. A popular method of trading natural gas, the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) has gone from a high of over $30 to 52-week lows of around $6.50. However, a large options spread could suggest gas prices are set […]
An options block trade in General Motors (GM) could be a sign of stability in the stock over the next several months. A trader appears to have sold a put spread in GM options that expires in September. The spread was sold 10,000 times, with the position collecting $1.40 in premium per spread. The best […]
One of the most heavily traded ETFs in the world is the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ). The Nasdaq 100 tracking ETF trades over 50 million shares on average per day and nearly 3 million options on top of that. Last week, an institution or fund purchased a whopping 65,000 puts in QQQ that expire in […]
