This Morning’s Bullish Trading
Seabridge Gold (SA), a Toronto-based gold miner, is seeing relative strength and increased options activity. The stock is up 98 cents to $13.34 in active trading of 425,000 shares. By way of comparison, typical volume in SA through midday is about 200,000 shares. Meanwhile, call volume is outpacing put activity more than ten-to-one. 15,000 calls and 1,475 puts so far. The flow is heavily concentrated in the January 14 calls. Early trades printed for $1.95 and $2.05 per contract. They were mostly smaller sizes. Now, a total of 14,050 Jan 30 calls traded in SA against 4,768 in open interest. The market was recently $2.40 to $2.50. It’s not clear what motivated the unusual volume in the stock, as there are no obvious headlines on the ticker and gold prices are again ticking lower (see today’s Implied Volatility mover section).
iShares Silver Fund (SLV) drops 20 cents to $25.89 amid ongoing weakness in the metals market and options on the ETF are busy today. 106,000 calls and 29,000 puts so far. January 40 calls are the most active. One investor bought 17,000 contracts this morning for 17 cents per contract, according to a source on the exchange floor. More than 55,000 Jan 40 calls now traded in SLV. Open interest at that strike is 173,727 and by far the largest in the ETF. So, some of today’s activity might be closing.
This Morning’s Bearish Trading
The biggest block of options traded so far today is in Bank of America (BAC). The stock is up 6 cents to $11.87 and among 17 Dow stocks holding gains on a day of mixed market action Thursday. On the options front, the big trade in the bank was a 60,000-contract block of November 9 puts for 21 cents per contract. An investor bought the puts, according to a source on the exchange floor, and appears to be opening a new position. If so, the hefty put purchase possibly reflects the view that shares of the bank will come under pressure through the November expiration, or maybe it’s a protective put hedging strategy against a large position in BAC shares.
Avago Technologies (AVGO) is flat at $34.30 and options volume on the Singapore-based semiconductor device-maker is 8X the daily average, being led by a block of 3,400 May 32.5 puts for 70 cents per contract on the International Securities Exchange. An investor bought the puts, to open new position, according to data from the all-electronic ISE. 4,278 contracts traded and some investors are possibly taking positions to help protect shares from further losses after a four-day 4.4 percent drop in the stock.