CNBC Stock Blog
- 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
- 3 Growth Opportunities in Tech: Analyst
- Prep Your Portfolio for Next Week: Stock Pickers
MOST SHARED
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- US Home Prices Up 5th Month, 2nd Straight Quarter
- China Eastern to Complete Shanghai Air Buy by End '09
- Gold Will Collapse Like Oil Did in 2008: Charts
- Weak Dollar Is Golden for Mining Companies
- Revised GDP Reading Puts Growth at 2.8%; Inflation Tame
- Wave of Debt Payments Facing US Government
- CA "More Profitable" After Saving Energy: CEO
- How Many US Consumers Will Shop this Weekend?
- Behind The Scenes With Warren Buffett
- 'Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What'
- On Assignment: Europe & Asia
- The L.A. Extravaganza: A Test for Auto Shows
- 8 Stocks That Could Gain With Rising GDP
- 5 Stocks That Benefit from Health Care Legislation: Analysts
- 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?
- US Home Prices Up 5th Month, 2nd Straight Quarter
- Revised GDP Reading Puts Growth at 2.8%; Inflation Tame
- FDIC Insurance Fund Falls to Negative $8.2 Billion
- Ron Paul's Plan to Audit Fed a 'Serious Attack': Mishkin
- US Economy Mired in 'Form of Depression': Rosenberg
- Strong Banks, Weak Credit: Treasury Rethinks TARP
- Fairfax Lawsuit Keeps Heat on Chanos, SAC's Cohen
- How Many US Consumers Will Shop this Weekend?
- Buyers Look For Bargains At Luxury Condo Auction
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