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Shares of Collective Brands rose $1.54 or 7.64% to close at $21.71 a share, Thursday. The stock was up 34 cents or 1.57% in after-hours trading.
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Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) is almost always one of the most active call options stocks out there. But today we are seeing a flurry of trading activity based upon last night’s announcement that it is repaying the full TARP amount. This first list is the DEC-2009 CALLS and we followed it with DEC-2009 PUTS as well:
CALL$   Volume   OpInt
$15.00Â Â Â 10,711Â Â Â 37,503
$16.00Â Â Â 99,716Â Â Â 102,460
$17.00Â Â Â 62,006Â Â Â 109,868
$18.00 Â Â Â 16,721Â Â Â 84,740
$19.00Â Â Â 3,041Â Â Â 20,268
$20.00Â Â Â 1,849Â Â Â 12,537
PUT$   Volume   OpInt
$14.00Â Â Â 2,933Â Â Â 104,680
$15.00Â Â Â 23,208Â Â Â 104,484
$16.00Â Â Â 74,628Â Â Â 84,786
$17.00Â Â Â 97,617Â Â Â 37,044
The stock is up 2.5% at $16.04 on the reactio to last night’s news. At 12:05 PM EST we have already more than doubled the average volume with about 374 million shares trading hands…. 4 hours to go.
JON C. OGG
DECEMBER 3, 2009
Huntsman Corporation (NYSE: HUN) is seeing a surge in options activity. There have been 30,698 calls traded, 15X average, and implied volatility is spiking 44% on rumors that Dupont (NYSE: DD) is looking at a possible $18 offer for shares of the company. The action has been extremely bullish with block buyers in calls at the offer ahead of the rumor and continuing now in strikes as high as the January $13 calls. Shares trade 1.45X cash value and look very cheap on valuation.
This deal appears to fit in with some deals of the past and it is worth noting that Huntsman was a busted private equity acquisition where Hexion Specialty Chemicals was originally going to acquire the company for about $28.00 per share. Shares are also up almost 8% at $10.70 and the 4.5 million share average volume has now been crossed at 11:25 AM EST.
Joe Kunkle, OptionsHawk.com
Geron Corporation (NASDAQ: GERN), StemCells Inc. (NASDAQ: STEM), and Opexa Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPXA) are all playing give-back this morning on the heels of monster gains yesterday due to the National Institutes of Health approving new embryonic stem cell lines.
At 8:39 AM EST we have GERN down 2.9% at $6.02 on 80,000 shares, STEM down 5.4% at $1.40 on 695,000 shares, and OPXA is down 10% at $2.86 on 35,000 shares. As a reminder, the NIH did say that it would be making a new announcement on stem cell line approvals after 96 lines were submitted…. and that deadline is tomorrow, so these may all swing wildly yet again.
JON C. OGG
Rubicon Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: RBCN) just took off like a rocket for a quick burst after it was touted on CNBC as one of the beneficiaries of pricing strength due to materials supply constraints. The interview featuring this one just ended at 1:28 PM EST…. At 1:29 we have shares up 6.8% at $19.29 after seeing a intraday high of $19.74… that would also mark a 52-week high. There have been 262,000 shares traded versus an average of 195,000.
JON OGG
RF Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: RFMD) is running up after that stock’s analyst rating was raised to Buy at UBS. As this is a low priced tech stock, you can imagine that the volume will be picking up this morning. At 8:32 AM EST we have seen 108,000 shares trade hands and the stock is up 3.6% at $4.68. This stock was up over 10% yesterday because of the strong tech sector (on Altera news) and it traded over 13 million shares yesterday too. The 52-week trading range is $0.70 to $5.85 and the average daily volume is 8.7 million shares.
JON C. OGG
Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) had a sudden surge in December $13 calls that traded 25,299 contracts against an open interest of 15,631 contracts, with large blocks being bought at the offer and shares trading to session highs. Applied Materials has the best of both worlds with chip stocks and solar stocks strong today. Shares trade 13X forward earnings. AMAT is presenting at the Credit Suisse Conference tomorrow at 11:30am and the Barclay’s Conference on December 9th. Call volume exceeds 30,000 on the day, more than 3X average volume…. This is interesting considering that earnings were barely three weeks ago. Shares are up 4.5% at $12.87 along with the strong chip stocks sector.
Joe Kunkle, OptionsHawk.com
American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) is recovering handily after yesterday’s analyst $12 call. The company is moving forward with its ALICO separation. It has also entered into a debt-for-equity swap with the New York Fed which may have just taken off $25 billion in debt and takes the NY Fed’s debt down to $17 billion. At 8:29 AM EST we have seen only about 350,000 shares trade hands and the stock is up 6.4% at $30.20. That also gets it well above the 200-day moving average (listed as $28.98) which was violated yesterday. It looks like Benmosche is getting things done.
JON OGG