Huge call volumes in VZ and T today...

[smile]

Does anyone have any insight into why VZ and T both have call volumes for the Jan 2012 monthlies of over 3 million today?

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/vz/option-chain

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/t/option-chain


Someone with big money expects a big move.

 

[smile]

http://www.optionistics.com/f/stock_prices?symbol=t

http://www.optionistics.com/f/stock_prices?symbol=vz

Low ivs and both stocks uptrending

 

[atticus]

Wow, $140MM in T 29C. Must be dividend related.

 

[smile]

Today, Fri., 1-6-12, no evidence of the huge Jan. 2012 monthly call volumes in VZ and T that were listed both on IB options brief page( under options analysis in Elitetrader) and nasdaq.com

The total volume for all strikes yesterday was about 5 million contracts for each. No evidence of it today in open interest. So, apparently there was bad data or they were all closed before the end of the day.

Question: Does a daytraded options contract open and closed in the same day count as 2 contracts traded in the volume???

There is evidence in the volume on bigcharts option charts of 29 T call... look at the volumes in the afternoon.

http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/ad...rsToggle=false&chartStyleToggle=false&state=9


Both VZ and T paid around a .50 dividend today, so presumably that was the reason for the huge volumes yesterday.

 

[dragonman]

It's probably a dividend related issue.

See the following post:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=233080

 

[smile]

Many thanks dragonman, your thread was very helpful... especiallly the link to the ISE paper.

http://www.ise.com/assets/files/abo...ns_Industry.pdf

This surely would seem to explain the incredibly high call volumes yesterday.

 

[dragonman]

Quote from smile:

Many thanks dragonman, your thread was very helpful... especiallly the link to the ISE paper.

http://www.ise.com/assets/files/abo...ns_Industry.pdf

This surely would seem to explain the incredibly high call volumes yesterday.

Sure, my pleasure.

 

[mastertrader456]

Yep Dividend play. JPM had the same think over the last week. Pretty genius way of collecting a dividend. Options are where its at.