Anheuser-Busch Options Activity Increasing (BUD)

247admin — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:23:40 +0000

Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. (NYSE: BUD) is starting to see another pickup in its call options activity today, which is looking similar to a move we saw two weeks ago. That doesn’t mean any deal nor any major news is imminent, but it usually sends traders into a frenzy to see what they can dig up or if any rumors are in the stock. We have included the various strike prices for each contract and we included today’s trading volume as of 2:20 PM EST (listed as “Vol.”) and the open interest (OpInt).

OPTION/STRIKE       Vol.       OpInt
JUN08 $60.00 CALLS   10,981   111,820
JUL08 $60.00 CALLS    12,649   53,630
JUL08 $65.00 CALLS    20,822   21,168
SEP08 $60.00 CALLS    3,552    43,683
SEP08 $65.00 CALLS    8,698    47,320

There was also an unusual PUT trade today as well, and based upon the open interest being half of today’s volume that is almost certainly a new position trade being put on…..

OPTION/STRIKE Vol. OpInt
SEP08 $65.00 PUTS 22,824 11,435

Shares are still in negative territory for the trading day although a steady move up was seen since about 1:30 PM EST today. Trading volume is roughly 4 million shares and average trading volume is 6.44 million shares.

Jon C. Ogg
June 11, 200

OPTIONS SPIKE: Anheuser-Busch (BUD)

247admin — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:13:44 +0000

Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. (NYSE: BUD) is suddenly seeing some unusual options activity in late morning trade. We saw some elevated trading earlier but over the last 90 minutes the trading in current run JUNE 2008 call options volume is running. It isn’t highly unexpected considering all of the InBev rumors that have been ongoing regarding a potential takeover of the US beer giant, but the pace would indicate more of an immediacy rather than some pondering. Here are the trades that had been seen in the June 2008 Calls right before NOON EST:

Strike     Last   Volume Open Int.
60.00    1.10    39,370    79,194
65.00    0.28    43,457    10,296

Interestingly enough, the option activity is so far limited to the current run June month. On a fully leveraged basis, those options would equate to more than 8.2 million shares. The July and September options are mum in comparison. When that is the case in favor of the current month expiration, it looks like conviction that a deal could be perceived to be imminent. If it was just “developing” or something that might take place in a few months out then traders would be trading the July or September contracts.

This has also seen 4.6 million shares of stock trade today with shares up about 1.4% at $57.33 on the day. Its 52-week high is $58.00 which was recently seen, and that also appears to be an all-time high.

Jon Ogg
May 30, 2008

Volume Spike Investor » BUD

Anheuser-Busch Options Activity Increasing (BUD)

OPTIONS SPIKE: Anheuser-Busch (BUD)