Unusual Options Activity

1. AMAT- Call activity was more than 6x the average daily volume in Applied Materials led by massive buying in the Feb 27 weekly $24, $24.50 and Mar 6 weekly $25 calls this morning. Net call premium was +$2.2M vs net put premium of +$212K (implied volatility +20.5% to 40.68).
2. BWP- Someone rolled out 123,061 Boardwalk Pipeline Partners Mar $17 calls ($0.65 credit) into 43,844 Sep $18 calls ($1.70 debit). Volume was above the open interest in the Sep $18 calls. On average only 4,445 calls trade per day.
3. CRTO- This marks the second consecutive trading day of sizable buying in the Mar $45 calls. The largest today is for 1,154 contracts at $1.85. Open interest stood at 2,866 from 319 contracts yesterday, while total call open interest is 8,851 vs total put open interest of 3,283 contracts.
4. MDRX- 5,000 Mar $11 puts and 2,000 Mar $12 puts in Allscripts Healthcare Solutions were purchased today for $0.30-$0.35 and $0.55 each, respectively. Volume was above the open interest in both options. He/she could be hedging or making a directional bearish bet heading into next Thursday’s Q4 earnings report. Normally less than 400 total options trade each day in (MDRX).
5. PSX- More than 6,500 Mar 20 $80 calls have traded with the majority going to the buyers for $1.00-$1.10, against open interest of 8,944 contracts. On February 13th, there was big buying for $1.22-$1.25, which added nearly 6,000 to open interest the next day.
6. TIF- The Jan 2016 $75/$87.50/$100 bull call spread risk reversal was put on 3,500 times for a $1.70 debit. Volume was above the open interest in all three options. This trade in Tiffany involves buying the Jan 2016 $87.50 call and selling the Jan 2016 $75 put and $100 call to reduce the cost of the trade. The breakeven point is $89.20 on January 2016 options expiration.
7. WLK- Over 2,000 Westlake Chemical Mar $70 calls were bought for $1.02-$1.15 each, against open interest of 17 contracts. The call to put ratio was 41:1 and call activity was 12x the average daily volume (implied volatility +6.8% to 40.04).

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AMAT BWP CRTO MDRX PSX TIF unusual options activity WLK