I Wish I Could Find Those Optimistic Consumers Right Now!
If we could find
those same idiots whose confidence rose during March, we might be able to
find a bid for some of the stuff everyone seems so eager to sell! Come on
now, did anyone out there really believe consumer confidence increased in
March? Let’s see, massive layoffs across all industries, equities going
down faster than presidential interns and California unable to keep its
lights on. Yeah, I guess I can see how the average consumer feels better
about his or her position today than last month.
I was going to point out a couple of interesting trading opportunities, but
given the speed of this southbound train, I thought I’d give the selloff
another day or so before stepping to the plate.
Corning
(
GLW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) has virtually equal
call and put volumes, but our $ weighted numbers show the puts being
purchased are of substantially greater value than the calls. Obviously, the Nortel
(
NT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) warning is hitting the entire optical sector, but despite
trading at a fresh 52-week low, we’re seeing big money scrambling for May
20 puts. Additionally, someone rolled their long Aug 45 puts down to the Nov
25 puts 844 times.
Likewise, our computers are tracking aggressive accumulations of puts in Microsoft
(
MSFT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating). April 55s and some very large blocks of October 70
puts have our alarms ringing. We’re showing two 1500 lots trade for 15 1/8
and 15 respectively, as well as five 1000 lots. That’s a pretty expensive
put to be speculating with. The really strange part is that these puts
weren’t bid up, but sold by these big players. Since the puts were sold
for $15 with MSFT trading $57, the seller is picking up just $2 of extrinsic
value, as they puts had an intrinsic value of $13.
Bearish
$ Weighted Put Action:
| Symbol color:black”>
|
Call
Volume PutVolume $WCall Vol $WPut Vol | GLW color:black”>
|
color:black”>4,358 color:black”>4,298 color:black”>5,260 color:black”>34,067 | MSFT color:black”>
|
color:black”>6,811 color:black”>18,880 color:black”>34,245 color:black”>151,359 | LU color:black”>
|
color:black”>4,936 color:black”>5,465 color:black”>4,866 color:black”>58,370 | IBM color:black”>
|
color:black”>7,250 color:black”>9,765 color:black”>28,641 color:black”>81,414In General |
| Symbol color:black”>
|
Call
Volume PutVolume $WCall Vol $WPut Vol | GE color:black”>
|
color:black”>16,086 color:black”>2,157 color:black”>47,249 color:black”>8,136 | JNJ color:black”>
|
color:black”>9,117 color:black”>2,174 color:black”>35,073 color:black”>11,603(1010WallStreet.com |