Virgin Media saw institution-sized call buying late yesterday after a rival TV company ended a long-standing legal dispute.
detected a block of 10,000 March 15 calls bought for $0.90 against open interest of 7,341 contracts, so this trade was clearly opening a new position. The strike has averaged call volume of just 139 a day for the last month.
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Virgin's shares have fallen sharply since trading well over $17 only three weeks ago, but they finished yesterday's session up some 3.5 percent to $14.54 after rival British pay-TV group BSkyB sold a 10.4 percent stake in commercial broadcaster ITV. That move, which was ordered by the U.K. government, effectively ended a protracted legal fight with Virgin.
The stock would need to rise roughly 9.4 percent for the March 15 calls to turn a profit. Total calls at all strikes in the name outnumbered puts by more than 1,100 to 1.
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Virgin Media Competes With:
British Sky Broadcasting
BT Group
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Chris McKhann is an analyst and writer for .
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