Volume Spike Investor

Based upon the rise in oil and commodities and the ultimate flight to safety or the ultimate flight to inflation protection, we are seeing again some increased call option activity in SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD).  This is the ETF that tracks the price of gold by essentially 1/10 of the price.  At 11:08 AM [...]

MFA Mortgage Investments Inc. (NYSE: MFA) rarely if ever makes the most active options list. Today it defied that statement.  The stock actually rose much less than other financials as its gain to $6.35 was a mere 2.1%.  We saw 50,253 contracts of the AUG08 $7.50 CALLS trade today.  The prior open interest was a [...]

SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) is seeing some unusual options trading in the near months contracts today.  Here we show the options contracts by strike and by month with open interest there:
JUL08 CALLS   Volume   OpInt
$25.00            9,821    25,781
$27.50            17,840  29,408
$30.00            1,957    11,285
$32.50            4,567    10,185
AUG08 CALLS  Volume  OpInt
$20.00            6,878    1,398
$22.50    [...]

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 [...]

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH) has been under aggressive fire, and with all the needs of capital that have been rumored it is of no real surprise.  Even though the company has denied every rumor out there, it is seeing excessive PUT OPTION activity in the early morning and that should lead to even [...]

There has been some highly unusual options activity today in BCE, Inc. (NYSE: BCE).  Not only that, but it is for current run expiration dates on the puts and calls in June 2008 (expire June 20).
We have seen over 20,000 contracts trade in both the $35.00 June Calls and Puts today, so someone is likely [...]