Options Trading News

One investor wants to earn a few bucks underwriting Canadian stocks.

optionMONSTER's tracking programs detected the sale of 2,000 September 25 puts on the iShares MSCI Canada exchange-traded fund for $1.35. An equal number of June 25 puts were bought at the same time for $0.05 against previous open interest of 2,332. This suggests that an existing short position was closed and rolled forward in time.

The investor had probably sold the June puts at an earlier date to earn income, betting that the fund would remain above $25. Now that it has held that key level, he or she has committed to an additional three months in the trade while collecting $1.30 of premium in the process.

The EWC is up 0.2 percent to $25.49 in morning trading. It dropped by more than 10 percent in the first half of May but has been bottoming out since then, around the same level where it bounced in October.

Canadian stocks are highly exposed to energy and materials, which have lagged recently as investors worry about the global economy. That fear has pushed up premiums, a condition exploited by today's put seller. (See our Education section)

Overall option volume in the EWC is more than 10 times greater than average so far today.