Options Trading News

MetroPCS Communications has been drifting lower, and one trader apparently thinks that the losses could intensify.

optionMONSTER's Depth Charge monitoring program detected the purchase of 29,454 February 10 puts for $1.05 and the sale of an equal number of February 9 puts for $0.55. A block of 29,454 November 10 puts was also sold for $0.15 but volume was below open interest in those.

It appears that the trader came into the session owning the November puts, which expire at the end of the week. He or she closed those and opened a new position in the February contracts, this time in the form of a vertical spread. They paid a net $0.35 and will collect $1 if the prepaid-wireless stock closes at or below $9 on Feb. 15. (See our Education section)

PCS is up 1.89 percent to $10.24 in morning trading. It had spiked over $14 early last month amid takeover speculation and has been falling since, despite better-than-expected quarterly results reported on Oct. 30.

The three-way transaction in PCS is the largest to cross our systems so far today. It pushed total option volume in the name to 5 times greater than average.