AMR Corporation (NYSE: AMR), the parent of American Airlines, saw large trading in the LEAPS… The JAN13 $3.00 PUTS saw some 8,697 options contracts trade hands.  Keep in mind that the open interest is 44,248 contracts.  The stock saw a 2% gain but the closing price was $5.87.

Coinstar Inc. (NASDAQ: CSTR) saw its stock close up 5% at $53.98 after earnings allowed shares to run, but the MAY11 CALL and PUT volume much higher.  Here is the MAY standout strike prices:
CALL$ Vol. OpInt.
50.00  5,865  11,178
52.50  995    7,161
55.00  9,614  14,394
57.50  2,926  1,788
60.00  2,467  1,600
PUTS$ Vol.  OpInt.
45.00  2,205  6,803
47.50  7,536  7,740

iShares Silver Trust (NYSE: SLV) is getting out of hand.  Stock volumes are now trading more than the whole float and the MAY11 CALLS traded nearly 150,000 CALLS on Friday versus about 100,000 MAY11 PUTS… Unfortunately, as long as silver remains the new crack for speculators then this options activity is just likely to stay high.

iStar Financial Inc. (NYSE: SFI) is one we never recall with highly unusual options trading.  This one saw 28,676 contracts trade in the JAN12 $10.00 CALLS and the prior open interest was only 19,501 contracts.  This was on the heels of it reporting its first real profit in three years.  Shares closed up 2.1% at $9.62 on 3.5 million shares versus a 52-week range of $2.70 to $10.48 and against average daily volume of almost 1.5 million shares.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is no longer known for its great price volatility.  Options traders were braced for a move of just under $1.00 in either direction and shares closed down $0.79 at $25.92 on Friday on more than 319 million shares traded. We saw more than 18,000 contracts of the MAY11 $25.00 CALLS trade hands, almost 67,000 of the MAY11 $26.00 CALLS trade hands, and more than 36,000 of the MAY11 $27.00 CALLS trade hands.  With more than 10,000 contracts traded in other strike prices, there were more than 130,000 CALLS traded. That is about 3:2 in call call volume over total put volume.  Despite a drop and despite caution and despite a value trap, there are still those who want to be bullish.

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPPI) saw a drop of 13% to $9.00 on more than 7.4 million shares, but this was ahead of the FDA decision.  The headlines show that FUSILEV won FDA approval for colorectal cancer.  Here were the options trades for MAY11 alone, and look for many more on Monday:
CALL$ Vol. OpInt.
9.00   1,514 6,544
10.00   3,748 5,681
11.00   6,386 7,519
12.00   1,465 2,929
13.00   1,190 1,196
PUTS$ Vol. OpInt.
6.00   1,182 3,650
7.00   3,045 6,181
8.00   3,599 6,291
9.00   1,315 3,914
10.00  1,068 1,900

UPDATE at 8:32 AM EST… 1.06 million shares have traded and the stock is now down 15.4% at $5.25.

At 8:15 AM EST we have seen a drop of 18% to $5.07 and there have been some 522,000 shares traded.  Average volume is over 2 million shares and the 52-week trading range is $0.55 to $10.00.  -JON OGG

OTHER SWINE FLU or FLU STOCK TICKERS ARE AS FOLLOWS: BCRX, CRIS, NKTR, OGXI, SCLN, SVA, SPPI, TRGT, VICL.

JON OGG

No additional clinical studies have been requested. The additional data requested do not involve new data analyses.

Still, the request appears to be a hiccup for shareholders who may have been expecting a fairly straightforward process for getting a supplemental biologics license application this month for Zevalin from the FDA in treating one of the five most common cancers in the U.S. Timing for approval was generally expected shortly after the FDA set a target date of July 2, 2009 for its review.

Full details are at BioHealthInvestor.com.