Volume Spike Investor

Meritage Homes Corporation (NYSE: MTH) was a very unusual stealthy volume spike today.  We saw options and stock trading abnormally.  In the options, there were the AUG $17.50 PUTS which saw some 20,308 options contracts trade.  Interestingly enough, the prior open interested was listed only as 440 contracts.  That represents some 2 million shares on a fully leveraged basis.  We also saw some 2.8 million shares as being the volume at 3:52 PM EST today.  Its average volume is only about 940,000 shares. At 3:52 shares were down over 9% at $14.64.  -Jon Ogg