CNBC Stock Blog
- Why Are Options Piling into Dollar Tree?
- Markets Can Rise 5-10% in the Near-Term: Strategist
- Buy These 'Competitively Positioned' Stocks: Portfolio Manager
- 5 Stocks That Benefit from Health Care Legislation: Analysts
- 9 Stocks That Play Rising Water Costs: Strategists
- Gold Prices Can Double in 3 Years: Portfolio Manager
- Rally Could 'Have Some Legs in 2010': Market Strategist
- Expect a 'Square Root-Shaped' Recovery: Chief Investor
- HP to Feed on Enterprise Spending Next Year: Tech Analyst
- How Stock Investors Can Play Holiday Travel
MOST SHARED
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- GM's Agreement to Sell Saab To Swedish Firm Falls Apart
- US Home Prices Up 5th Month, 2nd Straight Quarter
- Buyers Look For Bargains At Luxury Condo Auction
- FDIC Fund Falls into The Red, Bair Urges Lending
- Revised GDP Reading Puts Growth at 2.8%; Inflation Tame
- Weak Dollar Is Golden for Mining Companies
- Behind The Scenes With Warren Buffett
- 10 Holiday Cocktail Recipes from Top Mixologists
- Novartis 'Cells' Its Flu Vaccine Technology
- Silicon Valley and Hollywood Now Fast Friends
- Markets Can Rise 5-10% in the Near-Term: Strategist
- Busch: The Debt-Interest Rate Paradox
- The Lloyd's Prayer, Leggo My Eggo, Plate Hate & Your Emails
- Buy These 'Competitively Positioned' Stocks: Portfolio Manager
- Behind The Scenes With Warren Buffett
- 'Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What'
- On Assignment: Europe & Asia
- $42 Billion US Bond Auction Receives Strong Demand
- GM's Agreement to Sell Saab Unit Falls Apart
- Consumer Confidence Improves but Still Shaky
- US Home Prices Up 5th Month, 2nd Straight Quarter
- FDIC Fund Falls into The Red, Bair Urges Lending
- Buyers Look for Bargains at Luxury Condo Auction
- Ron Paul's Plan to Audit Fed a 'Serious Attack': Mishkin
- Strong Banks, Weak Credit: Treasury Rethinks TARP
- Holiday Guide to This Season's Smartphones
RSS FEED
Text Size 
Managing Editor, OptionMonster
Bearish traders apparently see weakness ahead for emerging markets and are buying downside options in a key exchange traded fund (ETF) expected to decline in the next two months.
Almost all of Friday's options trading in the Claymore/BNY Mellon BRIC ETF [EEB
Loading...
()
] took place at the September 33 contracts, where more than 7,000 puts were bought in the first hour of trading alone. The bulk of those trades came in just two blocks of 4,500 and 2,250 within one second of each other for $1.20, according to OptionMonster's real-time tracking systems.
___________________________
CNBC/OptionMonster Trading School:
___________________________
Total trading volume for all puts and calls average just 203 a day in the emerging-market ETF. Today's activity dwarfed the open interest of just 67 contracts and the average put turnover of only 4 contracts at the September 33 strike.
The EEB is off 0.65 percent to $34.81 in midday trading, but it has risen some 80 percent since the beginning of March and is nearly double its 52-week low of $17.60 from November. The shares would need to drop at least another 8.5 percent by the Sept. 18 options expiration for most of the puts purchased today to turn a profit.
Traders may be wagering that emerging markets are topping out after their blistering run since the spring. Research firm EPFR Global said today that the sector drew $2.6 billion in the week that ended Wednesday, the most inflows into emerging markets in more than a month.
__________________________
More Key Regional ETFs:
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index [EEM
Loading...
()
]
iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index [FXI
Loading...
()
]
iShares MSCI Japan Index [EWJ
Loading...
()
]
iShares MSCI Brazil Index [EWZ
Loading...
()
]
___________________________
___________________________
Mike Yamamoto is an analyst and writer for OptionMonster.
___________________________
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes