Trading Tips Blog

At-the-money puts suggest potential decline. The December 20th $10 put options on Freeport McMoRan (FCX) saw over 8,100 contracts trade, a 57-fold increase over the prior open interest of 143 contracts. With 84 days left to go, and with shares right at $10.00, the option should increase in value with any dollar-for-dollar drop in shares. With the option trading around $0.80, shares would need to only drop to $9.20 for the option holder to start making money on the trade. Freeport McMoRan has ...
Read More About This

Multiple directors add shares of struggling game retailer. Two directors took the opportunity to pick up shares of GameStop (GME) near all-time lows. Director Kathy Vrabeck bought 20,000 shares, paying nearly $106,000 to do so, and director Raul Fernandez bought 4,900 shares, paying just under $25,000. The buys come after the company eliminated its dividend earlier in the year and an activist investor targeted the company, suggesting it make a huge buyback with its cash hoard to unlock shareholder value. Other directors ...
Read More About This

  Bet on shares to move higher by spring. The March 2020 $34.00 call options on Uber (UBER) saw over 10,100 contracts trade against a prior open interest of 391, a 35-fold surge in volume. The bet, with shares trading around $31, indicates that shares should move at least 9.6 percent higher in the next 176 days before the option expires. Shares of the recent IPO have traded as high as $47 per share, back in late June, about a month after going ...
Read More About This

Buyers bullish ahead of earnings. The October 11th $18.50 call options on Snapchat (SNAP) saw over 18,400 contracts trade against a prior open interest of 500, a 31-fold surge in volume. Traders are betting that shares, around $17.50, can rally another $1, or 5 percent, higher in the next 16 days. That’s a reasonable bet, as shares have more than tripled off their 52-week lows of $4.82, and shares have traded as high as $18.36 in the past year. Snapchat shares struggled ...
Read More About This

Major fund holder adds to stake. Investment fund Hudson Executive Partners LP bought 143,200 shares of USA Technologies (USAT). Already a major holder with over 10 percent of shares, the $638,000 buy increases the fund’s holdings to over 8,339,170 shares. This is the second buy from the fund following the purchase of 1 million shares back in August, at prices 26 percent higher than where shares currently trade. Insiders have otherwise been holding their shares in the past two years. USA Technologies ...
Read More About This

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 ...
Read More About This

Fund with major ownership adds to stake. Investment fund Elliott International bought 6,529 shares of Roadrunner Transportation Systems (RRTS), shelling out over $64,000 to make the trade. A mere 0.3 percent increase in holdings, Elliott now owns over 23,227,100 shares, a stake worth more than 10 percent of the company. Elliott has been an active buyer of shares throughout the year, at prices as much as 25 percent higher than where shares currently trade. There has been only one insider ...
Read More About This

Big bet on shares heading higher by November. The November 15th $1,770 call options on Amazon (AMZN) saw over 2,042 contracts trade against a prior open interest of 147, a 14-fold surge in volume. With each option contract representing 100 shares, each option essentially controls $177,000 worth of shares. With Amazon shares around $1,775, the options are $5 in the money. Trading around $80, or $8,000 per contract, shares would need to top $1,850 for the trade to close in-the-money in the ...
Read More About This