‘Expiration’ or ‘Evaporation’?

  • March 16, 2001
  • Tony Saliba

Oh,
God what a week. In my professional 
opinion that is.  A glance at
the options market this Friday morning suggests options players have already
headed home to recuperate and lick their wounds.
Order “flow” is nothing more than a dribble, registering a 1.2 on our
scale of 1.0 to 10.0, with 2.1 being the 30 day moving average.  Our search engines
are picking up some unusual activity in the following names:
(
GMST |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), where
call buyers predominate; and
(
INTU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), where put sellers are out in force.

A glimpse at our
open Microsoft spreads, the MSQ April 60/65 Call vertical and the MSQ April
55/65 Call vertical reveals that both lost a bit of ground over this past
week’s chaos. The MSQ April 60/65 Call vertical is trading $7/8-$1 and the MSQ
April 55/65 Call vertical is trading  $
2 13/16- $ 3, with MSFT stock currently at 
$53 7/8.   When we got
in, the MSQ April 55/65 was in the money, and trading at $4 9/16- $4 11/16. 
The MSQ April 60/65 was trading at $1 11/16 —$1 13/16. 
MSFT stock was at $58

Thus, we lost
about 85 cents on the April 60/65 and about $1.70 on the April 55/65. 

But we cull both
good news and bad news from this fact. The
bad news is that we lost some money. The But Spreads limit risk.
Staying
Spread is Staying Alive… 

Here are
today’s numbers…

Pre-bell
order volume was very light this morning. Overall, call sellers led buyers 5:4,
while put sellers beat out buyers at 2:1.  In pre-bell activity,
(
ARBA |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
call sellers outnumber buyers 3:1, while put sellers lead buyers 2:1. 

(
ORCL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
call sellers led buyers 4:3. 
(
GLM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
call buyers showed up leading sellers 4:1.
(
CSCO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) call sellers led buyers
4:3. 
(
AMGN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
call sellers showed up dominating buyers 2:1.

First
Hour order volume was light this morning. Overall, call sellers land buyers are
even, while put sellers beat out buyers at 5:4.  In first hour activity,
(
ADBE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
call sellers outnumber buyers 8:1, while put sellers lead buyers 5:3. 

(
WCOM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
call sellers led buyers 7:2. 
(
IBM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
call buyers showed up leading sellers 5:1.
(
EMC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) call buyers led sellers
7:2. 
(
MSFT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
call sellers showed up dominating buyers 4:1.

Well folks,
another expiration is upon us. Keep sending me your burning questions tonys@tradingmarkets.com

 

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