Trading Markets (press release)
... over the past year, closed Wednesday's regular trading session at $45.68, up 13 cents. The stock is currently losing $1.88 or 4.12% in after hours trading.
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Titanium Metals Corp. (NYSE: TIE) is seeing severe options trading. The October $10 calls have traded more than 14,000 contracts with open interest of just 1,867 contracts as traders place large buy orders at the offer. The action comes a day after I recommended buying TIE on valuation due to comments from Boeing on the improving aviation forecast for 2011. Shares today broke above its 200 day EMA implying a move to at least $10.50 on the triangle breakout, and near an inverse head and shoulders breakout on the weekly. TIE is also often mentioned in takeover chatter. As of 12:55 PM EST the stock is up 6% at $9.41 and there have also been some 3.1 million shares that have traded hands. The 52-week range is $4.04 to $13.18 and the average volume is just under 3.2 million shares.
Joe Kunkle, OptionsHawk.com
General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) is running up a second day on an analyst call as its price target was raised to $18 from $15 at Goldman Sachs. Shares are up over 2% at $14.81 on about 1.5 million shares as of 9:15 AM EST. This is a tiny fraction of the average volume for a full trading day but still is one of the more active movers this morning. Be advised that GE is now within striking distance of post-crash highs, which could signal a breakout of the stock closes up about 3% higher and holds that level.
Resistance Levels appear to be R1-$14.75, R2-$14.93, and R3-$15.07….
-JON OGG
VIVUS Inc. (NASDAQ: VVUS) is soaring on what is already exponential volume. The company’s interim update showed that patients taking Qnexa reduced their weight by up to 14.7% on average in one trial, and the drug also showed improvement in blood pressure and diabetes symptoms and risk factors. Vivus’ second study showed an average weight loss of about 13.2%. As far as how this compares to placebo, patients taking placebo lost less than 3% of their weight. As of 8:38 AM EST we have seen a gain of 50% at $10.33 and we have seen 3.6 million shares trade hands. Average volume is only about 750,000 shares and the prior 52-week high was $9.00. This will be a monster volume day for VIVUS. Be advised, this one does have call and put options on it. -JON OGG
hhgregg, Inc. (NYSE: HGG) is seeing activity in the October $15 puts, with shares at $16.80. These have traded more than 4,500 contracts against OI of 46, unusually large action and in multiple sizable lots with more than half the action offer side. Implied volatility is also spiking from 61% to 66%. The chart is looking fairly weak with a potential 20/50 EMA bearish cross. There does not appear to be any upcoming catalysts but potentially Analysts are beginning to feel the company’s expansion initiatives are too much for the current consumer environment, and the company may need to scale back expectations.   The put action is now nearly 100X the average action for a day.
Joe Kunkle, OptionsHawk.com
Osiris Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIR) is getting clobbered hard as the biggest loser seen so far this morning. The company announced that its stem cell drug Prochymal failed both pivotal phase III studies in patients with graft-versus-host-disease. In short, back to the drawing board and back to drawing cash with stem cell research. This was halted for news at $12.21, but at 8:44 AM EST we have seen a 41% drop to $7.35 in the stock on over 140,000 shares versus a 310,000 share average daily volume. This will be an exponential volume dropper today. On day last week this traded 2.3 million shares and you have to go back to March 27 for another 2 million share day. Our guess is that today’s volume will blow those very active days away by a mile. Osiris does have stock options, and these were VERY active in SEPT-2009 PUTS and pretty active in CALLS on Friday. -JON OGG