CSCO Volume And Volatility Remain High Ahead Of Earnings
Yesterday’s nervousness about tech,
in particular, Cisco
(
CSCO |
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PowerRating), seems to
have faded, but not disappeared. After the close today we find out whether CEO
John Chambers’ company will continue their unprecedented streak of beating
street estimates on quarterly earnings. The whisper number is $.19 and we
expect them to match, not exceed that number.
As we reported last week, the volatility in CSCO options jumped substantially
when Chambers did his best to talk analysts down in their expectations at the
economic summit in Davos. The total option volume has already passed the
100,000 mark (as of 12:00 pm CST) and FEB volatilities are holding at 92%.
March volatility is steady at 70% for the at-the-money 35s.
Two other interesting option situations are Applied
Micro Circuts Corp.
(
AMCC |
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PowerRating) and Microsoft
(
MSFT |
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PowerRating). AMCC said customer contracts were being canceled and Goldman
Sachs downgraded AMCC this morning. A very large FEB 60 — 70 put spread
accounted for the bulk of the outrageous 9:1 $ weighted put-to-call volume.
MSFT has seen extremely heavy FEB 60 call volume and also some pretty
interesting trade in the LEAPS for 2003, as 4200 January 110 calls have
traded.
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Call
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Put
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$W
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$W
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|
Symbol
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Volume
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Volume
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Call
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Put
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|
AMCC
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9,145
|
30,250
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34,125
|
293,951
|
|
MSFT
|
36,024
|
9,643
|
117,066
|
26,650
|