Options Flow Summary: General Sentiment, S & GOOG

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General Sentiment
A typical quarterly expiration today, with last minute portfolio adjustments and some short-term speculators providing consistent volume.  Listed options are on track for nearly 12 million contracts and the flow is generally bullish, with four calls trading for every 3 puts.  The CBOE VIX is down to 18.66 as traders become comfortable with fed-handling of the credit crisis.

Sprint Nextel Corporation (S)
Sprint has been mentioned as a potential target in the past and similar chatter is being heard today.  Currently the stock is trading near $18.65, up $0.61 or 3.55% and option activity is on pace for more than 6 times the recent average daily volume. Activity is overwhelmingly concentrated in upside calls, with consistent buyers lifting offers and causing implied vols to spike several points from the mid 30% range. 

October 20 calls have traded nearly 16,000 contracts, and a recent ISEE Select value for Sprint of 4076 confirms the majority of this to be opening customer long contracts.  In addition, an institutional block of 5000 Jan-08 20 calls was bought on the Amex this afternoon tied to stock, suggesting a large player decided to adjust his exposure for upside as well.




Google (GOOG)
A favorite of last second speculators in the past, Google 550 and 560 strike September options have been very active for the past few days.  Yesterday as the stock climbed from $546.85 to $552.83, nearly 30,000 each of the Sep 550  and Sep 560 calls traded in small trades with buyers leading, and 29,000 Sep 550 puts traded in mixed activity. 

There was little net open interest change for these strikes illustrating the ëscalpingí nature of this flow.  Today the stock touched $560 and the scalpers are back, trading a total of more than 40,000 Sep 560 calls.  The stock is likely to pin at that price.

Pin Candidates
With less than an hour left in trading, the previously mentioned pin candidates follow.  UNH and GM very close to strike with substantial remaining open interest.

Symbol	Expiry	Strike	Put / Call	Spot	Distance	OI
UNH	Sep7	50	Calls	49.93	0.07	25154
UNH	Sep7	50	Puts	49.93	0.07	53413
GM	Sep7	35	Calls	34.8699	0.13	75009
GM	Sep7	35	Puts	34.8699	0.13	38924
ORCL	Sep7	22.5	Calls	22.16	0.34	28016
ORCL	Sep7	22.5	Puts	22.16	0.34	4137
INTC	Sep7	25	Calls	25.87	0.87	54181
INTC	Sep7	25	Puts	25.87	0.87	48988
YHOO	Sep7	25	Calls	26.18	1.18	46405
YHOO	Sep7	25	Puts	26.18	1.18	18319
GE	Sep7	42.5	Calls	41.26	1.24	41590
GE	Sep7	42.5	Puts	41.26	1.24	9482

Table Note:
The ISEE Select Index is a premium data source generated by the ISE for activity on that exchange. It takes opening customer long call trades over opening customer put trades *1000 and is published every 20mins thru the trading day. 

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