Options Trading News

Time is money for one investor who owns Sunoco.

optionMONSTER's monitoring systems detected the sale of 8,624 September 47 calls for $1 and the purchase of an equal number of August 47 calls for $0.61. Volume was below open interest in the August options but not the September contracts, indicating that an existing short position was rolled from one month to the next.

SUN rose 0.17 percent to $47.60 yesterday. The oil refiner surged in late April after agreeing to be purchased by Energy Transfer Partners and has been trading in a tight range since then.

The investor probably owns shares in SUN and previously sold the August calls to earn income. By adjusting the position, he or she collected $0.39 of additional income and agreed to remain in the trade for an additional month. At the same time, upside is limited because selling those calls fixed the exit price at $47. (See our Education section)

Without rolling the short calls, the investor would have been forced to unload the stock upon expiration at the end of tomorrow's session. The main risk of the trade is that the merger falls through, in which case the shares owned would plunge in value.

Overall option volume was triple the daily average in the session.