Volume Spike Investor

On the immediate surface, there has been some unusually high PUT OPTION activity seen in Unitedhealth Group, Inc. (NYSE: UNH) today. This is probably an easy explanation of a PUT SPREAD, with the caveat that this means someone else took the other side of the bet. As of 2:50 PM EST we had [...]

The weakness over at Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) is spilling over into the mortgage REITs and mortgage traders today.  The reason is that credit default swaps (and underlying spreads over Treasuries) have really widended out in the two government sponsored entities today.
Annaly Capital Management (NYSE: NLY) has been thought of [...]

Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) (NASDAQ: CMCSK) has been seeing some rather unusual options activity.  Based upon a snapshot we took of the Comcast options activity at 11:40 AM EST, you can tell that either a specific dividend trade is being made or that speculators are active in the stock’s long-term recovery.  It could even be [...]

We are seeing a flurry of Call Options activity in shares of Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) on renewed hopes that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) really may want to come back to the table…. IF Carl Icahn can get that board of directors fired. Here are the options snapshots for the near months (July and August) CALL [...]

Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. (NASDAQ: SSCC) is seeing a severe price and volume surge this morning in early trading.  Shares are up 18% at $4.77 on almost 2.7 million shares as of 9:56 AM EST.  This stock normally trades over 6 million shares, but this is major price action to the upside.  Credit Suisse raised its [...]

APP Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: APPX) is seeing a surge in trading this morning.  The culprit is an overseas buyout for some $23.00 cash per share, although shares are trading north of $23.00 because there are earn-out clauses that would entitle the holders to receive up to $6.00 more.
This stock for APP Pharma is up some [...]