Options Trading News

Gannett is up modestly with the rest of the market today, but one large option trader is taking a downside position ahead of the media company's earnings report on Monday.

GCI is up 1.83 percent to $14.50 this morning. The media company's stock rose sharply in the second half of June but hit resistance at $15 on the first session of July and has fallen steadily since then.

optionMONSTER's Depth Charge system detected the purchase of 4,843 July 14 puts in two large prints of roughly equal size, both of them going for $0.25 at the same second. Open interest in the strike was just 807 contracts at the beginning of the day, so these are clearly new positions.

Our systems did not detect any stock activity tied to these puts, though they could have been purchased as protection on a previously established long position. They could also be a straight bearish bet that GCI will fall more than 5 percent by expiration in a week. (See our Education section)

Overall option volume in the name is already 4 times its full-session average. Puts are outpacing calls by more than 2.5 to 1 so far today.