Volume Spike Investor » YHOO

Option Expiration’s Largest Open Interest Contracts (GE, MSFT, PFE, INTC, YHOO, CSCO, WFC, SPY, QQQQ, FXI, XLK, XHB)

247admin — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:40:04 +0000

Today marks the January 2011 options expiration date. There are many active options expiring, and the reason these are so large is because many are LEAPS rather than just normal monthly options. The old rule of thumb is that options tend to drift toward their closest and most active options contract strike prices. We identified the largest contracts with the highest open interest. These are all in major players and in major ETFs after that.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) JAN11 $20 Call has 234,732 contracts; JAN11 $19 Call has 209,801 contracts; Share price at 11:30 $19.46.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) JAN11 $30 Call 210,520 contracts; MSFT $27.50 Call 162,676 contracts…. Share price at 11:30 $28.10.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) JAN11 $17.50 Call… 186,517 contracts; JAN11 $20 Call… 192,992 contracts; Share price at 11:30 $18.25.

Intel Corporation JAN11 $22.50 Call has 186,623 contracts; JAN11 $21.00 Call has 164,583 contracts… Share price at 11:30 $20.90.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) JAN11 $17.50 Call has 161,010 contracts; Share price at 11:30 $16.01.

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) JAN11 $19 Put has 142,583 contracts and the $20 Put has 136.060 contracts; Share price at 11:30 $20.78.

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) JAN11 $30 Call… 104,257 contracts; Share price at 11:30 $32.49 so look at the $32.50: Call has 67,906 contracts and Put has 42,812 contracts.

In ETFs:

SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) JAN11 $125 Put has 358,490 contracts; Share price at 11:30 $128.74.

PowerShares QQQ (NASDAQ: QQQQ) JAN11 $54 Put has 217,276 contracts; Share price at 11:30 $56.04.

iShares FTSE China 25 Index Fund (NYSE: FXI) JAN11 $40 Call has 138,131 contracts and teh $40 Put has 136,096 contracts; Share price at 11:30 $43.45, so other strike prices matter more.

Technology Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLK) JAN11 $26 Call… 132,322 contracts; Share price at 11:30 $25.86.

JON C. OGG

Top After-Hours Movers & Reactions (AAPL, BP, APA, CYT, GILD, SHLD, YHOO, VMW)

247admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:30:29 +0000

Many shares are moving in the after-hours trading session. Most are earnings as earnings season is in full swing, but some are not tied to earnings at all.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) closed at $251.89 and shares are up 2.9% at $259.14 on more than 4.57 million shares as of 5:05 PM EST. SUMMARY

BP plc (NYSE: BP) and Apache Corp. (NYSE: APA) are on the move in after-hours trading. BP is selling $7 billion in assets in the U.S., Canada, and Egypt to Apache to help pay for the Gulf of Mexico clean-up. Apache Corp To Advance $5B To BP On July 30. At 5;10 PM EST BP is up 1.25% at $35.64 on 665,000 shares in the after-hours session; Apache is down 2.8% at $85.77 and has traded 265,000 shares in the after-hours session.

Cytec Industries Inc. (NYSE: CYT) rose after record earnings of $1.24 EPS vs. $0.67 from Thomson Reuters consensus; It also raised guidance to $3.20 to $3.50 EPS from a prior range of $1.90 to $2.40 EPS for 2010. Shares are up over 12% at $48.20 on about 34,000 shares as of 5:05 PM EST.

Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) is off lows after cutting its 2010 product sales guidance after earnings today. Still, at 5:05 PM EST shares are down 3.03% at $32.00 on 375,000 shares since the close.

Sears Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ: SHLD) should be the “FAKE” after-hours alert. There was either a clean-up trade that was not reported properly in time or a day traders and market maker have a beef over a print… Shares rose 4.5% to $64.80 in regular trading and a print of $60.95 for 8.685 shares at 4:51 PM EST has shares down by a mistaken amount considering the 5:05 PM EST bid-ask is much higher.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) closed at $15.20 before earnings and the reaction of light revenues has shares lower by 6.25% at $14.25 on more than 3.5 million shares as of 5:Z05 PM EST. SUMMARY

VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) is running up after earnings and after raising 2010 guidance. Shares are up 5.1% at $76.15 on over 600,000 shares as of 5:05 PM EST. SUMMARY

JON C. OGG

Yahoo! Role Reversal (YHOO)

247admin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:45:26 +0000

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) was looking so promising last night with a headline number way ahead of estimates. Carol Bartz was about to get so much praise. First-quarter income rose as display ads performed well and a growth in advertisers. The headline number was $0.22 EPS, although that included items, versus a $0.09 estimate; Ex-TAC, revenue came in at $1.13 billion for the quarter, which was short of $1.17 billion expected. Guidance was $1.6 to $1.68 billion in revenue, although that was not before stripping out TAC and is not comparable to estimates of $1.18 billion. Shares are down almost 5% at $17.49 on almost 2 million shares as of 8:43 AM EST. The 52-week range is $13.60 to $19.12 and average volume is 25 million shares.

JON OGG

Yahoo! At 52-Week Highs (YHOO)

247admin — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:46:02 +0000

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is trading up in the pre-market hours and reflecting some of the same of what we saw in the after-hours trading last night. The stock closed at $17.17 and is up about 5% at $18.04 on 804,195 shares as of 8:41 AM EST. Last night we saw shares go out in the after-hours session at the same $18.04 on some 9,109,533 shares. Average volume here is over 32 million shares, and we’d expect that level to be hit by noon. Be advised, this is technically a 52-week high at anything above the $17.94 price despite the $30+ price two years ago.

JON C. OGG

Yahoo! Powers On (YHOO)

247admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:14:12 +0000

Yahoo! (YHOO) is now trading up over 3% this morning after having been up originally by 0.2% on yet another analyst upgrade. Bernstein raised the rating to Outperform from Market Perform in a research call this morning based on low valuations. At 8:11 AM EST we have seen a gain of 3.7% to $16.15 after closing at $15.57 yesterday. The volume is also almost 300,000 shares on the call. This will actually be the highest share price since July 29. In the days before July 29, $16.80 was the first toppy area and then $17.10 and then $17.40. The high intraday on that cycle was $17.68 and the high close was $17.48. -JON OGG

Yahoo! Surging on Upgrade (YHOO)

247admin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:56:51 +0000

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is up on an analyst upgrade as BofA Merrill Lynch raised it to BUY from NEUTRAL. Shares were originally up 2% but Carol Bartz gave a CNBC i-view outlining how good the Microsoft search pact is and how different teh company is from Google. At 8:56 AM EST we have shares up 3.5% at $15.30 on over 650,000 shares. -JON OGG

Yahoo! Options See Explosive Volume (YHOO)

247admin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:16:10 +0000

As of NOON EST we have seen some very off activity in the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) stock options. We have seen more than the entire open interest of the AUG-$16 CALLS trade hands and it is only NOONEST. This is the activity in the AUGUST-2009 CALLS:

Strike.. LAST…volume /Open Interest
$15.00.. $0.80..7,259… 29,464
$16.00.. $0.39..82,151.. 77,586
$17.00.. $0.17..28,327.. 43,205
$18.00.. $0.07..8,939… 42,432

This is more contract activity in the $16 CALLS than in the entire PUT matrix…. We have only seen about 32,000 contracts for the entire AUGUST-2009 PUT options with strike prices from $10.00 to $22.00.

This could be many traders selling their “calls” they owned in hopes of a deal, but much of the activity looks like traders making more upside bets. If these are upside bets, these are so far heading the wrong direction.

Jon C. Ogg
July 29, 2009

MAJOR PREMARKET ALERT: Yahoo (YHOO, MSFT, GOOG)

247admin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:59:19 +0000

Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) shares are down more than 7 percent to $15.90 in early premarket trading of more than 100,000 shares; it was among the most active after-hours stocks, as well. The company confirmed a 10-year search-engine agreement with rival Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) to jointly attack Google Inc’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) 65 percent search market share. The move may dampen some lingering expectations that Microsoft may still buy Yahoo. Microsoft technology will now power Yahoo search, and Yahoo will become the relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. — Mike Tarsala

PREMARKET ALERT: Yahoo (YHOO)

247admin — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:11:00 +0000

Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) shares fell more than 4 percent to $16.03 in early premarket trading of more than 34,000 shares. following disappointing guidance last night and less-than-expected search revenue. The company’s operating earnings of 16 cents a share was roughly in line with estimates. But search revenue declined 15 percent vs. analyst expectations of only a low single-digit decline. For Q3, the company guided revenue to a range of $1.45 to $1.55 billion, short of estimates closer to $1.6 billion. EBITDA at the midpoint of the company’s guidance was a range of $330 to $370 million, short of consensus expectations of $424 million. — Mike Tarsala

Price/Volume Alert: Yahoo! (YHOO)

247admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:39:34 +0000

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is looking higher this morning on pre-market volume, but the stock is also getting a bit exhausted ahead of its earnings. This morning’s move is based upon the reports of a Microsoft search and advertising pact coming as soon as today. Both companies report earnings this week, so if no deal comes do not be shocked if and when there is a disappointment in the reaction. To show how much Yahoo! stock is dependent upon that deal, the 2.4% gain to $17.28 this morning as of 8:30 has shares compares to a share price of $14.55 as recently as July 9. We have seen close to 200,000 shares trade hands. This “imminent” status will create large trading volume in either direction if and when it comes. -JON OGG