Volume Spike Investor » merger rumors

PRICE/EVENT ALERT: Smith & Nephew (SNN)

247admin — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:45:42 +0000

Shares of Smith & Nephew plc (NYSE: SNN) are trading up this morning on a day where many other stocks are trading lower. Shares are up almost 3% at $59.29 right after the open (9:45 AM EST) on only about 12,000 shares. There is some light chatter (again) that a larger medical devices company in teh US might be interested in this U.K.-based medical devices company.

Last week we saw price target hikes on this stock from Credit Suisse and JPMorgan. Whether or not this is in play, well that’s why they call it “chatter” or “rumors” in the market.

JON OGG
August 19, 2008

Massive Volume Surge: SPRINT NEXTEL (S)

247admin — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:31:35 +0000

There has been a monster volume surge in shares of Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S). The talk is out that Sprint has decided to cancel its major securities sale. The firm took a hit with earnings when it said it was going to do a large preferred securities sale and short sellers were very active in the name. This has traders thinking maybe that the old rumors of a deal of some sort with SKTelecom might not be as dead as they thought it might be after earnings. Until you get a real report from teh company, treat this as speculation or hearsay. Shares are up about 5%, but the stock has trraded more than 200 MILLION shares as of 3:25 PM EST.

Jon Ogg

August 7, 2008

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