Volume Spike Investor

A company called Crown Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CCK) is leading the options trading activity today.  This is rarely an options volume leader so we wanted to dig down into this.

We have seen 6,779 option contracts trade in the OCT08 $30.00 CALLS and the prior day’s open interest was already 15,118.  It is always possible that this was a close-out trade as this has not created any new added major volume in the underlying stock.  At 10:55 AM EST we have seen only 430,000 shares trade and the stock is basically flat.  The volume and the open interest here in this contract alone is larger on both current volume and open interest than all of the others between August and October combined.

It’s hard to tell of this is real speculation or if it is just a hedge transaction even after looking at the quote recaps.  This is the old Crown, Cork, and Seal.  Crown manufactures, designs, and sells packaging products for consumer goods, foods, and beverages.  Whatever the trade is, this one does stand out if it is a new standalone position.  Otherwise, it might just be another day at the office.

Jon C. Ogg
August 11, 2008