Volume Spike Investor

Mirant Corp. (NYSE: MIR) is seeing shares up 0.9% at $40.86 on heavy volume of 11.7 million shares as of 10:02 AM EST.  While there hasn’t been any fresh news on the stock, there was a rather unusual trade.  A single block trade posted on the tape for 8,498,396 shares at $40.90 at 9:46.  As this was listed as being on an $0.11 downtick it has to be assumed that this was an institution selling.  If this was a held trade or delayed report, then all bets are off there as to what the block was.  But that trade alone represents more than 2-times its daily average volume before considering the other trading that has gone off.  This trade represents nearly a $350 million worth of securities in a single trade.  Based on March SEC filings, there are only five institutions with a stake larger than this block trade.

There have also been 10,000 of the MIR JUL08 $40.00 PUTS that traded hands, and the open interest in this was 12,029 before today.  We’ve seen 5,000 of the SEP08 $40.00 PUTS trade as well, and that open interest before today was 8,434 contracts.

Avg. Daily Volume:    3.326 million shares
52-Week Range: $33.75 to $44.61
Market Cap:    $8.46 Billion.

Jon Ogg
June 23, 2008