Quiet Weekend Embrace

The options
market failed to explode from the Bush “bombshell” this morning. As the
earnings reporting season winds down and the news from the fed on unemployment
proved lackluster, options investors seem more eager, perhaps, to simply make it
to the end of the day and head home.

Pre-bell
paper today was lower than normal and has total put sellers matched with put
buyers 1:1. Call sellers led buyers 3:2. QCOM’s
earnings report last night earned it the top spot in the most active (in volume
of order flow), along with stalwarts ORCL, CSCO and INTC. WCOM rounding out the
Top 5.


The
technology sector continued to show the heaviest amount of paper pre-bell, of
this call buying and selling were also split evenly.
The service sector also appeared to show some strong activity, with the
Retail (specialty) sector paper at a 4:1 ratio of put buyers to put sellers. By
the end of the first hour of trading, call sellers outpaced buyers 5:3.
JNPR showed call sellers leading buyers 3:2.



A lopsided (90%) pre-open QCOM put order flow showed mostly sellers, and by the
end of the first hour of trading, with the stock bounding over 10%, however,
call selling now leads buying 4:1. CSCO
put buy to sell ratio was steady at 3:2.

Do you have a follow-up question about something in this column or other questions about trading stocks, futures, options or funds? Let our expert contributors provide answers in the TradingMarkets Question & Answer section! E-mail your question to questions@tradingmarkets.com.
For the latest answers to subscriber questions, check out the Q&A section, linked at the bottom-right section of the TradingMarkets.com home page.