Volume Spike Investor

Jos. A Bank Clothiers Inc. (NASDAQ: JOSB) is generally a fairly thin volume stock with generally light options activity.  Generally…  But the short interest in this stock is always massive as many short sellers and special situation retail investors use this as a battleground stock.

Today we have seen what looks like very unusual options trading in the upscale mens’ clothing chain operator.  You will see the two strikes being active below:
MONTH/STRIKE         Volume    OpInt
JUN-08 $35 PUTS     32,419    44,952
JUL-08 $35 PUTS      32,618    4,387

This is almost certainly an options roll strategy where a holder of options decides to roll out the expiration dates and is rather common.  What isn’t common at all is the size of this trade.   32,000 contracts equals 3.2 million shares on a fully leveraged basis, and this stock has only 18.8 million shares outstanding according to our last available data.

Shares are up over 5% at $29.15 today with 620,000 shares having traded hands.  Its average volume is 1.15 million shares and the 52-week trading range is $18.81 to $45.64.

Jon Ogg
12:24 PM EST
June 16, 2008