Wipro (WIT) - The Benefits of Getting Long Stock

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WIT is a $32 billion IT firm. The LIVEVOL Pro Summary is below.



The company has traded over 1,500 options today in the first 20 minutes on total daily average option volume of 275. Further, over 1000 have been deep puts in March. The Company Tab snapshot is below.






The 1000 contracts have been purchases of the Mar 30 puts for $8.20 and $8.30 vs 22.30 stock. The biggest trades and Option Tab snapshots are included below (click either image to enlarge).





Paying $8.20 vs $22.30 stock on the March 30 puts Analysis:
Parity = $30 - $22.30 = $7.70
So that's $8.20 - $7.70 = $0.50 over.
The calls (see the options tab above) are $0.00 x $0.15.

Hypothetically one could reverse (do the opposite of the order flow) for a 0.35 credit.

Reversal:
Sell Puts @ $8.20
Buy Calls for $0.15
= Long synthetic stock for $30 - $8.20 + $0.15 = $21.95
Sell real stock @ $22.30
Reversal collects $22.30 - $21.95 = $0.35.

So that's an arb right?
Wrong!

Being long stock has value. Some are:
(1) Voting rights
(2) Collecting dividends
(3) Rights from stock rights offerings
(4) ADR rights
(5) Anything with a choice is always beneficial to long stock and harmful to short stock. Remember the edict for public companies - Enhance share holder (read long stock) value.

WIT pays an annual dividend (usually in June) which seems to move around. The Earnings & Dividends Tab snapshot is included below:



The dividend has never been larger than $0.12 over the last 7 years. Very interesting, as paying 0.35 over for deep puts requires a divi of at least that much to break even.

Other possibilities:
(1) The stock is slightly hard to borrow - this could be a converter (paying 0.35) hoping to reverse later for more if the stock gets even harder to borrow.
(2) the stock has a two tier takeover where voting rights are actually worth explicit value (but the bet would be to get long calls here probably for upside move).
(3) There is a rights offering - long stock has explicit value.
(4) Someone is short stock and is getting threatend for a buy in - rather than get naked long, they pay $0.35 to get out of the risk.
(5) ADR rights
(6) All of the above.
(7) Some of the above.
(8) None of the above.

Either way, this is a fascinating examination into the world of long vs short stock benefits.

Keep in mind, short stock only wins if a divi is cut.

Just to be clear, I am talking about delta neutral long vs short stock - not being short or long deltas.

UPDATE (one day later):
Just saw this news: "Wipro to Launch $1 Billion Sponsored ADR Issue" via Yahoo! Finance

Well there you go...

This is trade analysis, not a recommendation.

Follow @OphirGottlieb

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