The Option Block

Option Block 152: Facebook: Buy, Sell, or Wait for Options? Trading Block: Not a great day on the market, NASDAQ down significantly. The big grind toward summer begins, almost an exact replay on last year. OTM premium looks like a good buy. A rundown of commodities - gold is still getting whipped. Odd Block: Interesting and unusual activity in American Eagle Outfitters (AEO), Elan Pharmaceuticals,...

Option Block 151: The After-Hours Trading Debate Trading Block: Groupon earnings after the close, up by just a dollar. Red throughout most of the commodities today. Zynga had a little pop on the heels of the Facebook IPO news. Much like GRPN, a lot of legging opportunities. Ford re-tracing some of it lows in the recent months. Odd Block: Unusual and interesting activity in Groupon, Inc. (GRPN), Do...

Option Block 150: I'm a Trader, Not a Miracle Worker Trading Block: Cisco moving to the downside again after disappointing earnings. Priceline brought in a lot of calls to OX after they missed their earnings mark. New tools, provided by CME, are planned to help traders spot arb opportunities between ETF options and futures options. CBOE looking at creating an Apple VIX product. Activision posts mo...

Option Block 149: Beignets, Chicory Coffee, and Facebook Trading Block: Markets marginally changed. Thoughts on the Bloomberg article comparing it to the Markit CDX North America High Yield Index. The European issues continue. Post-elections reactions. Keeping an eye on EA after hours. Odd Block: Interesting and unusual activity in iStar Financial Inc. (SFI). Xpress Block: John Grigus discusses th...

Option Block 148:  Bizarro Day Trading Block: Preparing for Non-farms tomorrow. Now is a great time to get out of any short premium, if it's for a small price, and moving into long VIX calls. Gold got smacked out today. Natural gas up while oil and coal and both down.  Odd Block: Interesting and usual activity in Herbalife Ltd. (HLF), Green Mountain Coffee Roaster (GMCR), and earnings plays in Lin...

Option Block 147: Is ZYNGA the Synthetic Facebook? Trading Block: Most of the bleeding in the NASDAQ came from Apple, down again, and having trouble holding its highs. Denny's earning after the bell. Odd Block: Interesting and usual activity in Manitowoc Company, Inc. (MTW), and Warner Chilcott LTD (WCRX). Xpress Block: John Grigus discusses the integration of Charles Schwab and optionsXpress and...

Option Block 146: The Art of Position Management Trading Block: Apple, Apple, Apple! Off to the upside post earnings after getting beaten up last week. Waiting for Zenga and Amazon earnings after the bell. Odd Block: Unusual and interesting activity in Skullcandy, Inc. (SKUL), Aetna (AET), and Omnicom Group Inc. (OMC). Strategy Block: Uncle Mike discusses his recent moves and strategy with Apple w...

Option Block 145: What’s the Point of Open Interest? Trading Block: The term structure of the VIX was today's worst enemy. Netflix, the widowmaker, reporting after the bell, and exhibiting its typical bad behavior. Apple seems stuck in the $570 range going into earnings. Revisiting a question from last week, what account size do you need to really trade Apple effectively? Odd Block: Unusual and in...

Option Block 144: Walking into the Bandsaw of Theta Trading Block: Tosaw's run with Apple may be on its last legs. Loads of earnings after the close: NOT AAPL, but AMD, Bank of America (BOA), and Microsoft (MSFT). Odd Block: Unusual and interesting activity inPandora Media, Inc. (P), CBS Corp. (CBS), and EXCO Resources, Inc. (XCO). Xpress Block: Tim Navabi discusses being prepared for expiration a...

Option Block 143: Apple Apocalypse Trading Block: S&P rally vs. NASDAQ (Apple) apocalypse. AAPL sold out aggressively, down about 4%. Tosaw suggested last week the many buyers were lurking around $600. Priceline, Google and Apple were all down on the day. Andrew has a theory on why. Ten-year note rebound. Odd Block: An Apple overview, and unusual activity in Arvin Meritor INC. (MTOR). Xpress Block...

Option Block 142: Premium Selling Idiots Trading Block: VIX popped out of its range -- so much for fading to the downside. Apple, the target of an antitrust suit, was still up 1% yesterday. Commodities rundown -- new 10 year lows reached in the natural gas market. Odd Block: Interesting and unusual activity in Iron Mountain (IRM). Xpress Block: Mike Z from OX sits down for his first Xpress Block a...

Option Block 141: Getting Long Prison Premium Trading Block: Market down today in the wake of weak non-farm numbers on Friday. Yet Apple still up, if only by 1/2%. VIX heading north. It’s the $1billion day -- Microsoft buys 800 AOL patents for $1B and Facebook buys Instagram for $1B. Odd Block: Interesting and unusual activity in America Online (AOL) and Corrections Corps of America (CXW). Xpress...

Option Block 140: Doing Stuff with the Funk   Trading Block:   The markets were aimless today except for Apple carrying the NASDAQ.  It's a weekday, so Apple must be up 1%. Vol rundown. The mainstream media finally starts to pick up on what we've been saying about VIX, VXX and the TVIX all along, “Curious Case of VIX and VIX Products.” Odd Block: Activity review from March 8: Carnival Cruise Lines...

Option Block 139:  No More Exchanges, Please Trading Block: Lots of upside on the day: Dow, S&P, NASDAQ, and VIX. The many masters of VIX. Andrew and the love of fundamental indicators.  Doing stuff - NASDAQ-style.  Yes, they're launching ANOTHER options platform.  More fragmentation! More issues with spreading!  More quotes!  The more the merrier? Um, not so much.  The gang also discusses myriad...

Option Block 138: There Is No Crying in Options Trading Block: Vol rundown - despite little movement, there is quite a bit of intraday volatility in the vol products. RIMM, COSI & TIBX earnings after the bell. Obama looks to end oil subsidies. Europe still weighing in on the broad market. Best Buy slashing stores nationwide. The BATS debacle continues after they cancelled their IPO. ZNGA buys app...

Option Block 137: Selling the Hunger Games Trading Block: BATS debacle: All IPO trades busted as a matching engine encountered a software bug. The range of symbols, of course, included Apple. If you are executed on a limit order what do you do after your trade is busted? It's analogous to pin risk. CBOE suing ISE over 10x SPY contracts -- the no-brainer news of the week. The crushing of TVIX conti...

Option Block 136: Hunting, Fishing, and Options Trading Block: The market felt the weight of manufacturing issues in Germany, France and, most importantly, China. Chinese manufacturing shrank for the fifth straight month. Dollar General earnings before the bell today -- a Tosaw favorite. Also, the TVIX train wreck continues.  Odd Block: Unusual activity in LULU again! Lululemon Athletica, Inc. (LU...

Option Block 135: Naked Canadians & A Conference Roundup Trading Block: VIX on the rebound - the weekend coming back into the VIX, but the futures themselves were down today. A rundown from RMC: What is going into the term structure of the VIX futures? How does negative gamma scalping impact the market? Weeklies are not the primary gamma driver - it's still in the front month. SPX put spread vs. V...

Option Block 134: The Day the Market Moved Trading Block: A lot of excitement on the trading desk today following the largest move of the year so far. What factors contributed to this swing in to the upside? What was the rise in Vol that we show intraday? The Fed has hinted that it may start raising interest rates starting in 2014 - what effects might we see in the housing market? Xpress Block: Jo...

Option Block 133: One Thing Sebastian Won't Do Trading Block: With Greek deadline looming, will we get a vol pop or further vol implosion? CBOE is being investigated by the SEC, and its Chief Regulatory Officer put "on leave." TVIX is starting to couple back again, and volume in UVXY has helped alleviate that of TVIX. The new iPad is not exactly setting the market on fire or the hottest thing sinc...

Option Block 132: Has No One Heard of a Dutch Auction? Trading Block: China lowers annual growth target by half a percent, enough to send the bears into an uproar. Apple sells-off. Yelp has quite the surge to the upside, following the launch of its IPO. Metals/commodity rundown. Odd Block: Unusual activity in Pandora (P) and Baker Hughes, Inc. (BHI). Xpress Block: John Grigus talks about the Apple...

Option Block 130: Nothing Short of Titillating Trading Block: The VIX cash limbo strikes again - how low can it go? Greek deal in place since the last show. A lot of movement has continued in oil over the past few sessions. Sears posts huge Q4 loss, yet stock up 20% on news of spinning off assets. Tons of activity in SHLD options -- 23k ADV vs over 100k today. Odd Block: Unusual activity for Odd B...

Option Block 129: How Do You Know When You're Being Stupid? Trading Block: Markets up, VIX down. Interesting activity in the VIX futures. Massive retail growth in weeklys. The Michael Myers market. Odd Block: Unusual activity in Morgan Stanley (MS) and Kellogg (K). Listener Mail: A listener has a college-age son with $10,000 to invest. They want to know if they're foolish to think if they can make...

Option Block 128: Funky Backspread Trading Block: A decent selloff in VIX cash, but is the unknown still lurking? Greece stumbling toward salvation, but the worst is not over yet. Apple over 500 — up 2%. What's been causing this move to the upside? A few earnings after the bell: LPSN, SGEN. Odd Block: Unusual activity in NetApp, Inc. (NTAP), Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (LYV), and Seattle Genet...

Option Block 127: Predicting Facebook’s First Day Closing Price Trading Block: Apple is back to the races following the Nortel patent news -- up 10% post earnings and vol popping to the upside. Groupon down 14% - AGAIN. Cisco earnings were decent, but is the worst over? CBOE announces record volume numbers - stock shrugs in response. Activision out after the bell - now trading close to $13. Linked...