Volume Spike Investor

Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE: MER) is seeing some accelerated PUT OPTION activity today in the various JULY 2008 expiration PUT contracts.  Based upon all the rumors around almost every single financial, it may not be totally abnormal.  What is interesting is that with a $35.00 stock handle, some of these are WAYYY out of the money.  All the volume is for the near month expiration as well.

Here are the unusual PUT OPTIONS for JULY 2008 exipration by Strike Price:

Strike    Volume    OpInt.
$22.50    10,399    10,251
$27.50    21,978    7,597
$30.00    3,143      47,783
$32.50    15,688    22,671

As of 3:08 PM EST shares of Merrill Lynch are up 1.5% with other financials at $35.08 and we have seen 28.3 million shares trade hands.

Avg. Volume:        24.4 million
52-week range:    $34.01 to $89.23

Jon C. Ogg
June 24, 2008