Today’s tickers: CSCO, NYT, DRYS, INTC, VIX, MON, USB, CROX, IPG, ELN, & WFC

CSCO Cisco Systems, Inc. – Shares are off slightly by less than 1% to $19.42 ahead of earnings expected for release from the company this Wednesday. We observed a rash of put selling in the June and July contracts, a bullish sign from option investors on the stock. The in-the-money June 20 strike price saw some 4,700 puts sold for a premium of 1.40 apiece while the in-the-money July 20 strike also had about 4,500 puts sold for 1.61 per contract. Finally, the deeper in-the-money July 21 strike had some 4,400 puts shed for a rich premium of 2.23 apiece. Perhaps put-sellers see Cisco rebounding through the summer months.

NYT The New York Times Company – The media company has experienced a share price surge of more than 8.5% to $5.87 amid reports that the New England newspaper, The Boston Globe, is safe for now as NYT has not filed its intention to close the newspaper. NYT appeared on our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner late in the trading day as one investor appears to have sold 5,000 in-the-money puts at the July 7.5 strike price for a premium of 2.12 apiece in order to fund a bull call position in the October contract. The put premium helped fund the purchase of 15,000 calls at the October 10 strike for about 37 cents each. The trade yields a net credit of about 1.01 to the investor given the richer put premium received on the sale (1*2.12 – [3* 0.37] = 1.01). NYT plans to continue talks with its unions in order to avoid closing The Globe. The deadlines for negotiations have been extended to Sunday.

DRYS DryShips, Inc. – Shares of the shipping company have gained 13% to arrive at the current share price of $9.35. The drybulk carrier received a target share price increase to $12.00 from $10.00 by an analyst at Jeffries & Co. as well as an upgrade to ‘outperform’ at Oppenheimer. Bulls hungry for a continued near-term rally on DRYS picked up 12,500 call options at the May 11 strike price for an average premium of 25 cents apiece. The overall tone on the Greek fleet was optimistic as investors showed their preference for call options by trading calls more than five times to every put option in play. It will be interesting to monitor bullish…
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