Trading Tips Blog

Surge in September put buying. On Wednesday, over 5,000 contracts traded on the September 2019 $69.50 put options on ExxonMobil (XOM). With a prior open interest of 260, this was a 19-fold surge in volume. With a current share price at $70, the options are just out-of-the-money. The option buyer could see a penny-for-penny move should the shares fall less than 1 percent from here. ExxonMobil shares have traded as low as $64.50 in the past year, so a drop to those lows ...
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Surge in put-buying indicates drop by the month’s end. On Tuesday, over 4,700 contracts traded on an August 30th $123 put option on Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). The bet, with shares of the healthcare giant trading around $131, implies a 7 percent drop by the end of next week. The option, with a prior open interest of around 150, saw volume increase by 32-fold as a result of the surge in trading. The company could certainly see shares drop that quickly. In the ...
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Chief Legal officer makes six-figure buy. On Monday, August 19th, Michael Reeves, Chief Legal Officer at Lumber Liquidators (LL), bought 14,900 shares, a stake that cost nearly $124,000. The buy increases his stake in the company by 50 percent. This is the third buy by insiders in 2019, including a 14,000 share purchase by the company’s CEO, Dennis Knowles on August 8th, at a similar price. Insiders have been inactive in the stock between 2015 and 2018, with no insider trades recorded. Lumber ...
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CEO and CFO pick up shares of hotel chain. On Friday, August 15th, Geoffrey Ballotti, President and CEO of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts (WH), picked up 10,000 shares of the hotel chain, paying nearly $503,000 in total to do so. He was joined by David Wyshner, the company CFO, who picked up 2,000 shares, paying just over $100,000. Both executives are following up on a 10,000 share buy made on August 14th by director Ronald Nelson, who managed to pay just under ...
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Bet on drop in natural gas operator in next month. On Monday, a staggering 33,000 contracts traded on the September 2019 $17.50 put option on Apache Corp (APA). With 31 days to expiration and with shares currently around $20.60, it’s a bet that share will drop 15 percent in the past month. With a prior open interest of 101 contracts, this contract led the day Monday for volume relative to open interest with a 325-fold surge in volume—indicating a high-conviction trade. Apache Corp ...
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Large buy on extremely low-valued put option. It’s been a tough year operationally and for shares of Tesla Motors (TSLA). One trader is even betting on a further drop in shares in the next month, possibly as a result of a broad market decline, but also possibly because of company-specific issues. On Friday, over 40,000 contracts traded on a September 2019 $50 put option, expiring just over one month away. With shares around $220, the $50 strike would trade in-the-money only if ...
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CEO and director buy heavily following bearish report. On Thursday, August 15th, Larry Culp, CEO of General Electric (GE), bought 252,000 shares, paying just under $2 million. He was joined by director Paula Reynolds. She bought 10,000 shares, paying about $85,300 to do so. GE was one of the most actively-traded companies on Thursday, as a bearish report by analyst Harry Markopoulos (in conjunction with an unnamed hedge fund) stated that as much as $38 billion in wealth at the company may ...
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There are a lot of ways to make money in the market. But even if you find that rare company that can move ten-fold and provide one of the best profits of your lifetime, that will take time.Most investors get impatient. Trading Tips’ Andrew Packer explains why you should be looking at blue-chip bargains ...
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