Articles from the Experts
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 Option Block 91: The Widowmaker Rides Again Trading Block: The "Widowmaker" (NFLX) CEO apologizes for the screw up with their pricing and thusly losing 1 million customers and the stock dropping 50% since the price increases in July. Could Netflix split into two separate businesses? Lenders tell Greece to get its act together and reduce the size of its government, or run out of cash within a few weeks. Metals/Commodities rundown -- collaring gold until November. Oil really took it on the chin due to uncertainty in Europe. The Odd Block: Range Resources Corp. (RRC) saw its shares pop late this morning on news out of DealReporter that the company has been approached by a non-U.S. suitor. Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (CY) sees an early bearish put buyer this morning with the focus on the near month at-the-money contracts. Amerigroup Corp. (AGP) Interesting Option activity in ahead of the company’s analyst meeting in New York tomorrow morning. Xpress Block: Rob Kurzatkoski discusses the goings on today at OX, including Netflix and the recent and strange gold and S&P relationship. Strategy Block: In this strategy block, Andrew Giovinazzi talks strategy about the metals/gold frenzy that is consuming everyone these days. Around the Block: Housing starts tomorrow and existing home sales on Wednesday. Is housing a good indicator of the market? FOMC Wednesday -- their relevance is fairly benign given they're holding fast for the next couple of years. Also, Jobless claims Thursday. |
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Option Block 90: The Voice of Options TRADING BLOCK: Research in Motion (RIMM) - The future looks bleak. “The Widowmaker” strikes again - Netflix (NFLX), which was trading $300 just two months ago, down 40%. Yet another “rogue trader” on the loose - this time it costs UBS $2 billion. Commodities rundown - gold is coming down, is this the right time tighten up your hedges? ODD BLOCK: Unusual and interesting options activity in: UBS AG (UBS) - a staggering $2 billion lost in trading as a rogue trader racked up unauthorized dealings. Call buying and put selling on the stock appear to be the most employed strategies of the day, with investors expecting shares to recover in the next five weeks. Amerigroup Corp. (AGP) - ahead of the company’s analyst meeting in New York tomorrow morning, an opening buyer appeared in the September 45 Calls, paying the offers of $0.25-$0.35 for approximately 3500 contracts. These options expire tomorrow after the close so these trades will need the stock to climb another 4.6% to begin to see any profits. XPRESS BLOCK: Tim Navabi takes the reins and discusses the hectic day today at OX due to "The Widowmaker" aka Netflix, as well as the upcoming expiration of September futures. STRATEGY BLOCK: Mike Tosaw illuminates us on some in-depth options strategy. First, with the upcoming expiration, if you're not ready to hold a stock and you're short a put, maybe you'll want to close out those penny options. Second, make sure you know position delta before doing ratio spreads. AROUND THE BLOCK: An update on RIMM. Still some concern over Greece, also some concern about expiration upcoming. Not too much else lighting up the tape on the earnings front though. Play it safe this weekend. |
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Option Block 89: Risk On, Risk Off Trading Block: Metals outlook - Gold, bonds, and GLD have all been pulling back, there seems to be a lot of building of cash reserves right now. The heavy movement in VXO relative to VIX means there is a lot at the money buying to up the curve. Risk on/ risk off. VIX has been trading above VXN, so clearly the risk is in the financials, not tech. Could there be a violent move toward the upside? Is there any truth to the rumor that China could be buying Italian debt? Interview Block: Today's guest Joe Cusick, the head of education at OX, talks a little about the progression he feels most people should go through when learning about options. How do you keep investors interested while teaching them about the stuff that's not as fun? Education for some of the more refined and advanced traders. Finally, what is Joe's opinion of the VIX-based products, ETF - ETN, that have come into the market place? Has volatility become an asset class? Strategy Block: Mike Cavanaugh discusses what he saw in the marketplace, and how to build a long term investment portfolio given the trends he observed. Around The Block: Our hosts prognosticate about the upcoming week. In a market like this, it’s a great opportunity to sell premium. Retail sales on the 14th and Philly Fed comes out on the 15th, both of these could have a big impact on the market. When will things with Greece get resolved? |
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Option Block 88:Gold Vol and The Big O Don't forget that Option Block listeners get FIVE FREE trades when you open a new OX account. Click for details: www.optionsxpress.com/oxradio Trading Block: The market turned red despite Uncle Ben's promises. Obama's jobs speech - how will it affect the market? Commodity rundown - GLD off to the races again today, but is it time to start being bearish? A rundown of volatility & VIX. Odd Block: DNDN halted with suspicious option activity. Unusual activity also in SuperValu Inc. (SVU) - This is probably someone taking advantage of option liquidity to dump some stock. FedEx Corp. (FDX) - An example of Bullish risk reversals; R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. (RRD). Xpress Block/Mail Block: OX's own Tim Navabi answers a few listener questions in this combo Xpress / Listener Questions block. 1.) Schwab hasn't offered portfolio margin in the past, but now that they have acquired OX, will they be offering that to their customers now or is that still a benefit only for OX customers? 2.) I have some clients who are also Schwab customers. They are excited about the prospect of portfolio margin coming to their accounts. How do they go about getting that treatment? Do they have to switch their accounts to OX? Will it be automatic? Is there some online form to fill out? Around The Block: Looking forward to The Big O's speech on jobs - could the payroll tax be a huge issue? After the speech, will we see the whole weekend coming out? |
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Option Block 87: OX-Schwab Day One Odd Block: Unusual activity in: Dunkin’ Brands Group, Inc. (DNKN); American Express Co. (AXP); Lexmark (LXK) Xpress Block: Alex Jacobson is back and discusses Legal Day 1 - the first day the Schwab/Option Xpress business combination became legal, and the party that ensued outside his window. The futures are becoming a more mainstream product. Strategy Block: Mike Tosaw discusses the world of 1 by 2 ratio spreads. What are the advantages &disadvantages? |
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Option Block 86: Back in the Day Trading Block: Tech leads the way today, while GLD finally has a down day. Short VIX bets are finally paying off, but there's still more downside to go. Plus, a rundown of metals from a wild day. How much of a downside move in gold are we looking at before considering rolling the puts back down? Not much action to report from commodities today. Odd Block: Unusual activity in Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) - Who purchased the lottery ticket? IMAX Corp. (IMAX) - Is this from the re-running of Transformers 3? Sealed Air Corp. (SEE) - A size day for SEE on Friday Xpress Block: Today's guest Alex Jacobson discusses retail's appetite for futures recently. How the times have changed in the futures market, especially for retail. Around the Block: Is there more VIX downside ahead? What's the weekend risk? Is it worth it to own premium? Non-farms coming up on Friday, more to be discussed about that next show. |
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Option Block 85: Apple's Jobs-lessness
Trading Block: The news of Steve Jobs stepping down from Apple has dominated the headlines. What does this mean for future Apple plays? What's the outlook on Apple vol going forward? An outlook of the metals market. The CME raises the margin rate of gold, a little too late? What's driving an interest in copper? Also, has scalping negative gamma exacerbated the downward movements seen in the past few weeks?
Xpress Block: Rob K discusses how Bank of America's order flow surged as bottom pickers got an early Christmas care of Warren Buffet. The newest OX iPad app is just around the corner! Around the Block: QE3 - Does it even have a prayer of happening? What is the positioning ahead of the Bernanke speech? Could we possibly take a hit going into the weekend? |
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Option Block 84: The Madness Returns Trading Block: Special guest Andrew Giovinazzi of Aqumin takes Sebastian’s seat as the all-star gang discusses market madness. The market has become quite the drama queen with global concerns smack the market again. Consumer confidence is still low - this is getting to be a broken record. Commodities rundown - gold and treasuries are where everyone is putting their money. Patent lust has been inflating some smaller tech stocks like NOK, EK, etc. Odd Block: Unusual activities in Seagate Technology (STX), New York Times Co. (NYT) and NRG Energy, Inc. (NRG) Xpress Block: What's been going on behind the scenes at optionsXpress - today was one of those outlier days. Around the Block: The patent wars continue to drive activity in the tech sector – watch your upside. Niche names like CBOE should be faring well in the environment, not following the market down - perhaps there may be some opportunity in the downside? Also, a VIX outlook for the next few sessions. |
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Option Block 83: GOOG Gobbles MMI. Who's Next? |
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Trading Block: An overview of Vix performances for the last week. Is everything rosy again? Treasury auction came out very weak. Jobless claims numbers rallied.
Odd Block: Unusual activity in Cisco (CSCO), Asiainfo Holdings Inc. (ASIA) and OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI). Xpress Block: Mr Navabi walks us through what it was like to be at the center of the madness this week at OX. Mail Block: From Tom S, in Cleveland: Does OX offer IRAs? Can you use naked short puts to leg into long equity positions in an OX IRA account? Strategy Block: Uncle Mike Tosaw discusses a cash and hedge secured, unlevered bull put spread Around the Block: Not too much in the way of earnings. What's the outlook for weekend risk? |