If Only Pinning on Apple Maps Worked as Well as Option Pinning
I’m going to save us both time by not rehashing the excitement, or lack of, today’s highly anticipated earnings releases. The real excitement came earlier this week with GOOG’s bombshell. Although today was an anomaly in that both AAPL and AMZN didn’t provide huge movements in the stock once it settled down after hours, what does appear to be fairly consistent is that premium sellers win again. Even when there is a huge pop or drop after an earnings release, somehow it seems that premium sellers have the upper hand by Friday’s close. So perhaps now more than ever it would be good to go over the ranges in open interest in our favorite high flyers to get a preview into what will likely guide tomorrow’s closing prices (although as of late this market has definitely kept us on our toes so use it as a guide keeping an open mind). Below are open Interest levels for some of our highly followed and traded stocks (most of which reported this week). Over the weekend I will evaluate which stocks did or did not pin within the ranges I am posting below.
Note these are all weekly options that expire Friday 10/26/12.
Let’s start with non other than $AAPL
The range is rather large using highest open interest – from about 560 to 650. However to cause the most amount of pain to option buyers a pin of around 610 (about where the stock is now after hours) would do the trick.
$AMZN
Again using highest OI the range is rather large, being 200 to 250. However, the most pain would occur right around the 230 strike.
$GOOG
650 to 700 would be the OI range; however, the best outcome for those premium sellers would be right around 680.
$CMG
The 240 strike seems to be perfect for $CMG.
$PCLN
$PCLN, although didn’t report, moved more off of $EXPE earnings than $AMZN or $AAPL did on their own earnings. 550 to 570 would be a good range to pin, but the perfect pin would be around 560.
$FFIV
The highest OI range is from 80 to 105. The most painful strike for option buyers would be near the 92 strike.
$WYNN
110 to 120 would be the highest OI range. The most painful pin would be at 115.
There you have it. Let’s see how many of these stocks pin at the most painful spot for the option buyers and the most rewarding for the option sellers. Twitter: rrshasss