Globes
In after-hours trading on Nasdaq the share jumped 12.5%. On the TASE the share was up 9.42% to NIS 29.50 by early afternoon trading today. ...
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Options volume in The Coca-Cola Cola (NYSE: KO) is much more active than normal. Coke is not one of the more volatile names where you generally see options volume. The September $52.50 CALLS traded 10,248 versus open interest of 7,588, the second day of large bullish call buying. Also, 12,000 OCT-2009 $52.50 calls trading and 4,967 OCT-2009..55 calls with both exceeding open interest. Shares are definitely breaking out of consolidation here and look to be targeting above $52.50. There does not appear to be any upcoming catalysts, but it is a name the Buffett is always involved with, and earnings should come before October options expiry. This could be more of a major technical call and feeling that a soft drink tax is not coming with the health plan.
JOE KUNKLE, OptionsHawk.com
FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) is surging on its announcement that it raised guidance. At 11:02 AM EST we have a 7.3% gain to $78.00 and we have already crossed over 4.75 million shares. That is getting close to 150% of its average volume and is triple what we have normally seen by this time in the morning. The 52-week trading range here is $34.02 to $96.65, but this was north of $100.00 less than two years ago. Just to show how much this one has risen of late, the 50-day moving average is $64.85 and the 200-day moving average is $56.45. This move today takes the stock to levels not seen since last October, and technically it looks like each dollar up is a move into relatively new territory. This has now run 130% or more since the lows during that panic selling wave in early March.
The secondary direct play off of this is United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE: UPS), with a 4% gain to $58.68 and the 4.3 million share average daily volume has just been crossed. Its 52-week trading range is $37.99 to $70.00. Our other lesser stocks in the group which we use to track this are Expeditors International of Washington Inc.   (NASDAQ: EXPD) and UTI Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ: UTIW), both of which are up close to 4% but on surprisingly low trading volume.
-JON OGG
American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) is back in the soup…. Wells Fargo joined in on the downgrade brigade and took the stock down to Underperform from Market-Perform. As we have already seen two key downgrades, it seems that traders are becoming jaded to the downgrades. At 8:46 AM EST we have seen over 400,000 shares trade hands. The average volume is 34 million shares but the volume in each of the last 10 days has been significantly higher than that average. So far this is down less than 3% at $36.80. With this being the third downgrade, we’d actually look for AIG to trade the direction of the market from wherever this stock is trading around 9:45 or 10:00 AM EST…. This one has also been in a $36 to $40 trading channel the last three days. As a reminder, many traders have started using AIG put and call options to trade this because the stock often moves too fast. -JON OGG
We recently noted after Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) raised its dividend that the dividend north of 7% would likely cause a huge dividend capture trading activity as te dividend date was before the expiration date of the September options. Our little belief ended up being the understatement of the year. Normally if you saw options activity like this, you would think that the stock was about to be acquired or that the company was going to get to start giving cigarettes out in machines at schools. That isn’t the case, but you will be amazed at the options trading in the SEPT-2009 CALLS:
Strike Volume  OpenInt.
$15.00Â Â Â 48,114Â Â Â 1,982
$16.00Â Â Â 112,109Â Â Â 4,495
$17.00Â Â Â 535,360Â Â Â 17,039
$18.00Â Â Â 664,058Â Â Â 21,031
The total volume in the stock today was a mere 23.3 million shares, still above the 16 million average. But the total leveraged amount of this if you just tallied up call volume would have been over 100 million shares… Don’t be fooled by that. This was a dividend capture trade.
Jon C. Ogg
September 10, 2009
BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ: BMRN) is a name which comes up in the emerging and speculative biotech takeover list rather frequently, and today we are seeing some interest on speculators. As of 1:10 PM EST we are now more than exponential on the volume alert after a quick CNBC tout by one of the Najarian brothers. We have seen 5.3 million shares versus an average volume of 1.36 million shares. Shares are up almost 10% at $18.03, and the 52-week trading range is $9.93 to $30.74. The SEPT-2009 $17.50 CALLS have traded some 6,365 contracts today, versus an open interest of 344 contracts. Even in the OCT-2009 $17.50 CALLS, these have traded 1,745 contracts today, versus an open interest of 770 contracts.
As our friends noted over at BioMedReports.com, this company is presenting data at the Morgan Stanley Healthcare Conference in New York City on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 1:35 p.m. ET.
JON OGG
Delta Petroleum Corp. (NASDAQ: DPTR) has been on a rampage on more than just heavy volume after the company had reportedly received approval to drill four new exploratory gas wells in Washington. At 10:52 AM EST we have shares trading up another 9.5% at $3.32 on over 10.7 million shares. The average volume is 4.7 million shares, but that figure was actually closer to 3.5 million before yesterday’s monstrous volume surge. Its 52-week trading range will show just how zany this stock is: $0.88 to $21.95.
On Wednesday we saw some 63.9 million shares trade hands and it closed at $3.03, but that is a huge gain compared to the 11.1 million shares after a $2.28 close on Tuesday and after a $1.96 close on Friday.
Delta has been around almost longer than many trading careers if you are under 40 or 45 years old. From 2006 to earlier in 2008, this one spent most of the time trading between $15.00 and $30.00. The mudslide in the stock chart here started in summer of 2008 and all of these gains which seem to be ludicrous are minor when you compare it to where this one has been in the past for a stock that is still under $1 billion in market cap today.
Analysts expect losses for the next two years and its history of earnings and revenues is a spotty one, particularly as revenues are expected to be one-third to half of what they used to be.
JON C. OGG
SEPTEMBER 10, 2009
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is up on an analyst upgrade as BofA Merrill Lynch raised it to BUY from NEUTRAL. Shares were originally up 2% but Carol Bartz gave a CNBC i-view outlining how good the Microsoft search pact is and how different teh company is from Google. At 8:56 AM EST we have shares up 3.5% at $15.30 on over 650,000 shares. -JON OGG