CNBC Stock Blog
- 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
- 3 Growth Opportunities in Tech: Analyst
- Prep Your Portfolio for Next Week: Stock Pickers
- Global Growth Good for Portfolio: Stock Picker
MOST SHARED
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- Why Amazon Rules Retail
- Wave of Debt Payments Facing US Government
- HP Comes in As Expected; Is It Time to Buy?
- JAL Slides to Record Low on Bankruptcy Jitters
- Paul: Audit the Fed
- Prepare For Large Decline In Stocks, Next Year?
- Hewlett-Packard Profit Rises, Matches Guidance
- The Social Media Gaming Threat
- Holiday Travel Outlook
- Can Murdoch Help Bing Challenge Google and Shift the Content Equation?
- HP's Mark Hurd
- HP Comes in As Expected; Is It Time to Buy?
- 9 Stocks That Play Rising Water Costs: Strategists
- Weis' Deal Likely Won't Change Big Money Contracts
- Gold Prices Can Double in 3 Years: Portfolio Manager
- Nov. 23: Unusual Volume Leaders
- Help Wanted—Please Run $4 Billion University
- Apple Comes to AT&T's Rescue
- Obama says Boosting US Jobs is Top Priority
- More Consumers Giving 'Black Friday' the Cold Shoulder
- Prepare For Large Decline In Stocks, Next Year?
- Hewlett-Packard Earnings Rise, Match Guidance
- HP Comes in As Expected; Is It Time to Buy?
- Cramer: What Monday’s Housing Number Really Means
- Why the Dollar Will Likely Stay Weak for Some Time
- Bear, Lehman Execs Weren't Wiped Out by Crisis: Study
- How Real Estate Investors Skew Housing's Reality
RSS FEED
Text Size 
Cofounder, OptionMonster.com
Upside option activity exploded in the XHB homebuilder exchange-traded fund when the market surged yesterday afternoon.
The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF [XHB
Loading...
()
] ended the session up 4.06 percent to $15.38 on more than double the average daily stock volume. The XHB is up 18 percent in the last three months.
Volume in the November 16 options ballooned to 126,799 calls, more than 17 times existing open interest at the strike. Most of the large trades priced for $0.25 to $0.30 in a strong buying pattern, according to OptionMonster's real-time tracking systems.
The bulk of the option activity was concentrated in a 10-minute interval in the afternoon when the market neared its peak for the session. The trades pushed overall options volume to almost 12 times greater than average for the XHB, whose main holdings are Lennar [LEN
Loading...
()
], Owens Corning [OC
Loading...
()
], and Williams-Sonoma [WSM
Loading...
()
].
For the calls to be profitable, the stock would need to rise roughly 6 percent or more before the options expire on Nov. 20. Overall calls at all XHB strikes outnumbered puts traded by more than 9 to 1.
___________________________
Options Trading School:
___________________________
___________________________
Jon 'DRJ' Najarian is a professional investor, CNBC contributor, and cofounder of OptionMonster.com.
___________________________
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes