Apollo Calls Remain Active On Mixed Views – Featured Tickers: APOL, ERTS & MMR

Options Intelligence Report for Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and Transocean Ltd. (RIG)

A roundup of activity in the futures market – Will Warm Weather Heat Up Natural Gas Futures?

Unusual options activity review for Friday, July 16, 2010

The company traded over 13,000 options on total daily average option volume of just 508. Zero (0) puts traded; the order flow is entirely call buying in Aug and Jan '11.

At the time of this post VVUS was trading $5.06, down 58.3% with front month volatility down several hundred points.

This is an update to this post from Friday General Electric (GE) – Earnings Preview on Volatility Pattern.

Bullish Investor Enacts Options Combo Play On Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. – Featured Tickers: GS & BP

Options Intelligence Report for Health Care Select Sector SPDR (XLV) and iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund (EEM)

The company traded over 12,000 options on total daily average option volume of just 3,330. The largest trades are Aug 14, 15 call purchases and Oct 11, Jan '11 10 put sales.

GE has followed a consistent pattern for seven out of the last eight earnings starting with the 10-10-2008 cycle and ending with the last earnings cycle on 4-16-2010. Specifically, a straddle sale at the close on the day of earnings and a purchase back the day after was a winner seven times.

We can see the ATM straddle is now worth $0.95. Yesterday, the straddle was worth the same.