Friday’s Options Alerts
It was a very
boring pre-holiday trading day. Action was slow and choppy at best.
Both the Dow and S&P rose modestly higher for the majority of the session
before a selloff during the last 30 minutes of trading.
Meanwhile the Nasdaq
was held back all session long after some negative comments from Sun
Microsystems
(
SUNW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), Novellus Systems
(
NVLS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and Bell South
(
BLS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating).
Blue chip stocks initially received a push from today’s bunch of somewhat
positive economic news, but they also succumbed to the late-day selloff.
Personal spending in July rose 1%, beating estimates of a 0.7% rise. This was the
biggest jump in spending in nine months. Meanwhile personal income was flat vs. a 0.2% increase expected by economists. The Chicago PMI numbers also came
in at 54.9, beating expectations of a 51.00 reading. Lastly, the Michigan consumer
sentiment for August backed off to 87.6 from 88.1 in July. Consumer sentiment
also came in slightly lower than the 87.8 expected reading.
At the close, the Dow
(
$INDU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
dropped 7.49 points, or 0.08%, after rising over 110 points earlier. For the week,
the index lost 209 points, or 2.36%. The Dow has now pulled back after five weeks
of gains. In addition, the index has been down for the last five months. The S&P
(
$SPX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) fell 1.72 points, or 0.18%. For the week, the S&P dropped 30
points, or 3.19%. The Nasdaq
(
$COMPX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) continued to be weakest link after
all the news surrounding the tech sector. The Naz dropped 20.92 points, or 1.56%.
For the week, the index fell 66 points, or 4.78%. Don’t read too much into this
day.
The VIX
(
$VIX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) gapped up, opened near
its highs, and close near the lower third of its range. This shift in intraday sentiment
again suggests a drop in fear. The VIX didn’t trigger any CVR signals today. The VXN
(
$VXN.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
gapped up sharply, opened near its highs, and closed near the lows of the day. This shift
in intraday sentiment shows a big drop in fear. The VXN triggered a CVR 1 and 2
buy signals today.
Points of Significance:
| Volatility Index |
Close | Net Change |
Signals/Direction | % Above/Below 10 Day Moving Average |
Significance |
| VIX | 35.80 |
DOWN 0.52 |
NONE |
7.57% Above |
Not At Extreme |
| VXN | 54.98 |
DOWN 0.07 |
CVR 1, 2 BUYS |
10.98 % Above |
At Extreme |
Abnormal Options Volume With Price Movement
—
Abnormal options volume (calls and puts) with stock price movement
| Name | Symbol | Net % Change |
Volume | Avg. Volume |
| Marvell Technology |
MRVL |
– 8.63 |
7455 |
2691 |
| CV Therapeutics |
CVTX |
– 5.51 |
1813 |
496 |
| Delta Airlines |
DAL |
– 3.83 |
18042 |
2627 |
| People Soft |
PSFT |
– 4.57 |
18061 |
5506 |
| Michaels Stores |
MIK |
+ 2.83 |
1030 |
311 |
| Invitrogen |
IVGN |
– 2.17 |
2120 |
496 |
Stocks With Biggest Spikes in Implied
Volatility — Stocks with biggest increases or decreases in implied
volatility compared to previous day
Spike Up
| Name | Symbol | IV | Previous IV |
High IV |
Low IV |
| Exelon |
EXC |
37.4 |
33.3 |
44.0 |
25 |
| Abbott Labs |
ABT |
37.1 |
33.7 |
48.1 |
21.7 |
| Andrx Corp. |
ADRX |
117.6 |
108 |
140 |
73.6 |
| Panera Bread |
PNRA |
55.5 |
51.2 |
59.9 |
39.7 |
| Sandisk |
SNDK |
81.6 |
75.3 |
103.2 |
61.8 |
| Invitrogen |
IVGN |
4.3 |
50.2 |
96.2 |
50.6 |
Spike Down
| Name | Symbol | IV | Previous IV |
High IV |
Low IV |
| Duane Reade |
DRD |
50.7 |
58.8 |
82.2 |
28.9 |
| PepsiAmericas |
PAS |
29.0 |
32.6 |
33.5 |
26.0 |
| Embraer Aircraft |
ERJ |
63.6 |
70.5 |
67.3 |
35.8 |
| Dominion Resources |
D |
31.4 |
34.4 |
49.5 |
15.4 |
| Ingram Micro |
IM |
41.9 |
45.7 |
45.6 |
36.2 |
| Telik |
TELK |
76.0 |
82.7 |
87.8 |
66.3 |
Please use stops on every trade!