Upside Crawl

As the stock
market reacted slightly positively
to the release of numbers
including Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, the options market’s pre-open
paper this morning showed call buyers and call sellers evenly split @ 1:1. Total
put sellers lead put buyers 3:1. Overall, calls made up 82% of total market
order flow, and puts 18%. Top 5 in volume of order flow were, INTC, CSCO, MSFT,
WCOM, and QCOM.

The technology sector continued to
show heavy activity pre-bell, with total order flow consisting of 84% calls, of
this call buying and selling were split evenly.
The service sector also appeared to show some heavier than normal
activity, with call sellers constituting 60% of total call activity. By the end
of the first hour of trading, calls buyers made up 80% of total market activity,
and call selling increased to a 3:2 lead over call buying . In puts, total order
flow showed an even 1:1 ratio. Top 5 in volume of order flow were: INTC, CSCO,
WCOM, QCOM, and AOL. In AOL call buys and sells were even at 1:1.

A lopsided 4:1 ratio of MSFT call
sellers to call buyers pre open evened out by the end of the first hour to a 1:1
ratio. This shift, coupled with the fact that MSFT broke 70 for the first time
in a long while may point to some heavy activity today. WCOM is showing a 3:1
ratio of call buys to call sells, while JNPR is showing a 3:1 ratio of call
sells to call buys. We will continue to monitor these developments throughout
the day to gauge their significance.

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