Friday, July 19, 2013

Post Market Report: 7-19-13

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Thursday, July 18, 2013

Post Market Report: 7-18-13

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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Post Market Report: 7-17-13

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Splunk (SPLK) - Stock at All-time High; Volatility at All-time Low


SPLK is trading $50.20, up 0.6% with IV30™ down 5.7%. The LIVEVOL® Pro Summary is below.




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Splunk Inc. (Splunk) provides a software platform. Splunk’s software collects and indexes data regardless of format or source, and enables users to search, correlate, analyze, monitor and report on this data, all in real time.

I found this stock using a real-time custom scan. This one hunts for depressed vols.  The interesting note here is that SPLK is actually at an all-time low in IV30™ while the stock is near all-time highs.

Custom Scan Details
Stock Price GTE $5
IV30™ GTE 20
IV30™ Percentile LTE 10
Average Option Volume GTE 1,200

The two-year (ish) Charts Tab is included below. The top portion is the stock price the bottom is the vol (IV30™ - red vs HV20™ - blue vs HV180™ - pink).


On the stock side we can see the awesome upward trajectory the price has been on since late last year.  The stock has gone from ~$26 in Nov to now over $50. So we see a nearly 100% return in ~8 months.  We can see that he price is right at an all-time high.

But this is a vol note... So let's look to an IV30™ chart in isolation below over the same time-frame.


While there are ebbs and flows surrounding earnings, ultimately the implied has been drifting lower since the last earnings cycle ad is now at an all-time low.  So, we have a stock at an all-time high in stock price with the vol at an all-time low... Hmm...

Finally, let's look to the Options Tab (below).


Across the top we can see the monthly vols are priced to 33.62%, 33.36% and 38.11% for Jul, Aug and Nov, respectively. That Aug vol represents the IV30™ at this point (so close to expiry).

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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Post Market Report: 7-16-13

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Tesla (TSLA) - Volatility Divergence Forms; Risk is Elevated for the Next 4 Days


TSLA is trading $112.15, down 11.9% with IV30™ up 6.5%. The LIVEVOL® Pro Summary is below.



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Tesla Motors, Inc. (Tesla) designs, develops, manufactures and sells electric vehicles and advanced electric vehicle powertrain components. Tesla owns its sales and service network.

I wrote about TSLA in a three piece series in May. You can read those posts by clicking the titles, below:


5-9-2013: Tesla (TSLA) - Earnings Explosion Spectacle Hides Vol Shift -- This is a New Company -- A Paradigm Shift is Complete

<5-15-2013: b="">Tesla (TSLA) - May Skew Stays Parabolic; Vol Diff Opens... And Some Stuff You May Not Have Known...

5-29-2013: Tesla (TSLA) - This is a New Company; The Paradigm Shift Continues; Part 3 of 3.

Today the stock came up on a real-time custom scan. This one hunts for calendar spreads between the front two months. And yes, I know we are just four days from expiry, bu this is still worth a look...

Custom Scan Details
Stock Price GTE $5
Sigma1 - Sigma2 GTE 8
Average Option Volume GTE 1,000
Industry isNot Bio-tech
Days After Earnings GTE 5 LTE 70
Sigma1, Sigma2 GTE 1

The snapshot of the scan is included (below) in case you want to build it yourself in Livevol® Pro.



The goal with this scan is to identify back months that are cheaper than the front by at least 8 vol points. I'm also looking for a reasonable amount of liquidity in the options (thus the minimum average option volume), want to avoid bio-techs (and their crazy vol) and make sure I'm not selling elevated front month vol simply because earnings are approaching.

Looking to the Skew Tab (below), we can see the elevated vol in the front month (red line) relative to the second month (yellow line).



We can see two phenomena here:

(1) Jul vol is above Aug vol for all strikes.
(2) The Jul skew shape is parabolic (which is common going into expiration), so the OTM vols show an exponentially greater volatility difference between Jul and Aug.

The earnings date for TSLA is a it ambiguous. Last year they released on May 9 then Jul 25. This year they released on May 8, so Jul 24 is a reasonable guess for the next earnings report. If that's the case, we not only have a calendar vol diff, but one in which earnings vol can be owned for less than the font month (without earnings). Hmmm...

Now we can turn to the one-year Charts Tab (below). The top portion is the stock price, the bottom is the vol (IV30™ - red vs HV20™ - blue vs HV180™ - pink).



On the stock side we can see how TSLA's price has rocketed from an annual low of ~$45, to now trading over $110, even with the large decline today. On the vol side, check out that pop in the implied (the red line). A part of that is due to earnings, but the really abrupt nature of it is in part a reflection of today's pop (~10% as I'm writing the article).

Finally, let's look to the Options Tab (below).



Across the top we can see Jul vol is priced to 91.76% while Aug is priced to 82.50%.  But, look at some of the OTM spreads and we'll see much greater than that 9 point (ish) vol diff.

For example:
The Jul/Aug 130 call spread shows a vol diff of ~14 vol points and the Jul/Aug 92.5 put spread shows a ~42 point vol diff.

Please understand that these are just observations not trade ideas or recommendations.

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Pre-Market/Post Market: 7-16-13

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Monday, July 15, 2013

Post Market Report: 7-15-13

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Pre-Market/Post Market: 7-15-13

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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Leap Wireless (LEAP) - Takeover Comes; Did a Cheater Ride Along? How to Make 7,000% in 3 Minutes


LEAP closed Friday at $7.98, up 2.5% with IV30™ up 1.4%. The LIVEVOL® Pro Summary is below.



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Leap Wireless International, Inc. (Leap) is a wireless communications carrier that offers digital wireless services in the United States under the Cricket brand. Leap’s Cricket service offerings provide customers with unlimited wireless services for a flat rate without requiring a fixed-term contract or a credit check

But then this happened:

---
AT&T said it has an agreement to buy Leap Wireless for $15 per share in cash, or just under $1.2 billion.

Before the announcement, shares of Leap closed at $7.98. They have almost doubled in after-hours trading and are now above the purchase price, indicating investors believe another bidder may emerge.

Source: CNBC via Yahoo! Finance AT&T to Buy Leap Wireless for $15 a Share in Cash
---

I actually used to make a market in LEAP options in 2008 and even back then it was a take-over name. Back then it traded over $50...

Anyway, Doris Frankel called me up from Reuters almost immediately after this news hit the wire and asked about some of the order flow today... In my opinion, there is a substantial chance that insider information was leaked and traded on to garner absurd profits (like 7000% in a day). But it was done like a pro...

Here are the facts:

1. Let's turn to the Stats Tab.



a. The firm averages 1,001 calls traded a day over the last three-months and saw 6,789 options trade on Friday.
b. The call to put ratio was nearly 20:1

2. Some highly unusual options were purchased. The Options Tab is included below.



a. Check out those Jul 9 calls. Those are options that expire in a week and have almost no OI. But on Friday, more than 1,300 traded for an average price of ~ $0.10. How fortunate, with the stock trading at $16 after hours, those $0.10 options are now worth at least $7.00 -- or, 7,000% of their purchase price.

b. The Aug 9 calls see similar action, bought for ~$0.40, but with substantial OI.

The interesting thing here is that option orders (the purchases of the OTM Jul and Aug calls) were pretty small. I've included the Jul 9 call action, just looking at orders greater than 25 lots.



Check out how many orders there were. And the sizes range from 27 to 164 lots -- nothing large and obvious. But, here's the trick... Look at the far left hand side. The timing of the purchases -- they all happened within a three-minute window and just 15 minutes before the close. Coincidence? Well, that would be something.  Feels like someone hiding size by breaking it into smaller trades...

Obviously it's possible this was not improprietous behavior... But it ain't looking good...

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Friday, July 12, 2013

Con-way (CNW) - Stock Breaches Multi-year Highs; Massive Put Spread Bought Ahead of Earnings


CNW is trading $41.71, down 0.4% with IV30™ up 12.7%. The LIVEVOL® Pro Summary is below.




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Con-way Inc. and its subsidiaries (Con-way) provides transportation, logistics and supply-chain management services for a range of manufacturing, industrial and retail customers.

This is an order flow note surrounding a company with earnings coming up with a stock price trading at multi-year highs. The company has traded 8,511 contracts on total daily average option volume of just 230. Further, all but 146 contracts traded have been puts, for a nearly 60:1 put:call ratio. The action is almost entirely centered around a purchase of the Aug 40/35 put spread -- and Aug expiry has earnings. The Stats Tab and Day's biggest trades snapshots are included (below).





The Options Tab (below) illustrates that the puts on both sides are mostly opening (compare OI to trade size). When looking down the entire option chain for CNW outside of Jul (which expires today), I don't see any OI larger than 459, so both sides of this trade are very large.  This is pretty clearly an earnings bet (or an earnings hedge).



Finally, the two-year Charts Tab is included below. The top portion is the stock price, the bottom is the vol (IV30™ - red vs HV20™ - blue vs HV180™ - pink).


We can see the stock completely fell apart two-years ago, dropping from $40.17 to a low of ~$20.50 in about three months.  Just recently the stock has surpassed those levels (note the yellow horizontal line that I drew in to help see that the levels today are in fact above the levels two-years ago).

The next earnings date for CNW is 7-30-2013 AMC.  So, earnings are due out in less than three weeks, the stock is at multi-year highs, the vol is starting to rise and a huge (huge relative to this firm's OI and average option volume) put spread was just purchased.  Interesting...

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Pre-Market/Post Market: 7-12-13

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Thursday, July 11, 2013

Post Market Report: 7-11-13

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Air Products & Chemicals (APD) - Stock Hits 5-year High; Volatility Hits Annual High; Earnings Due Out Soon.


APD is trading $96.72, up 0.2% with IV30™ up small. The LIVEVOL® Pro Summary is below.




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Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. has a portfolio of products, services, and solutions that include atmospheric gases, process and specialty gases, performance materials, equipment, and services. It is a supplier of hydrogen and helium and operates in markets, such as semiconductor materials, refinery hydrogen and natural gas liquefaction.

This is both a vol and a stock note as earnings approach. APD has breached an annual high in stock price today as well as an annual high in IV30™ and there is still about two weeks to go before earnings are announced. This is a tricky one b/c having said all that, it's just a 23% vol company... And that has implications...

Let's start with the Charts Tab (one-year) below. The top portion is the stock price, the bottom is the vol (IV30™ - red vs HV20™ - blue vs HV180™ - pink).



On the stock side we can see that Y-O-Y the stock is up from $78.61, so ~a 25% rise.  Nice...  Looking more myopically to the current period, we can see that the price level reached today (the intra-day high) has breached an annual high.  Even more notable, this stock level hasn't been realized since 2008 for APD -- so we're looking at a 5-year high (give or take).

Then there's the vol... Let's turn to the one-year IV30™ chart, below.



While we saw a stock price multi-year high i the first chart, we can see more clearly here that the stock has breached an annual high in the implied as well.  Earnings are due out 7-23-213 BMO, but still, we have a week and a half before that date and we already see annual highs in vol coinciding with a -year high in stock price.  Hmm...

Finally, let's turn to the options Tab for completeness.



Across the top we can see Jul vol is priced to 21.66% and Aug vol is priced to 24.08%.  That vol difference is due to the earnings event.  Here's a point worth observing, outside all of these relative comparisons.  This is a 24% (or whatever) vol stock that has now reached a five-year high in price and an annual high in volatility well ahead of earnings.  Does this feel like a 24% vol "moment in time" for the stock?  I dunno... Maybe it does... In any case, it wouldn't surprise me if the IV30™ hit the 27%-30% range even if the stock keeps rising. So here we see a rising stock and rising vol... There is no "normal."

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Pre-Market/Post Market: 7-11-13

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