Monday, September 13, 2010

Wendy's (WEN) - Bullish Bets Pile On With Naked Downside

WEN closed at $4.69 on Friday, up 4.2%. The LIVEVOL™ Pro Summary is below.



This is in the context of: Burger King (BKC) - Did Somebody Front Run the News

The company traded over 53,000 options on Friday on total daily average option volume of just 2,670. 50,000 of those contracts went up in a Jan'11 4/5 risk reversal (sold puts/bought calls). The Stats Tab and Day's biggest trades snapshots are included (click either image to enlarge).





The Options Tab (click to enlarge) illustrates that the OI in both lines is as large (or larger) than the trade volume, so there is an ambiguity as to whether or not this was opening. As of today the OI in the calls went up to 51,830 and the OI in the puts went up to 67,083. This trade was opening on an already massive bet.



Finally, the Charts Tab (6 months) is below (click to enlarge). The top portion is the stock price, the bottom is the vol (IV30™ - red vs HV20™ - blue vs. HV180™ - pink). The yellow shaded area at the very bottom is the IV30™ vs. the HV20™ vol difference.



We can see an abrupt move upward of late. On 8-31-2010 WEN was $3.91. As of 9-10-2010 it got as high as $4.73, or more than 20% in two weeks. The IV30™ is 56 compared to the HV20™ of just 40. The longer term realized vol is just 36, so short term vol is definitely elevated.

The big trade on Friday sold 46 vol and bought 54 vol (note that the calls traded at substantially higher vol than the puts). With HV180™ at 36, this is a purchase of elevated vol, though it is spread off. The stock has a 52 wk range of [$3.83,$5.55].

Trade Stats
The trade nets 3*$0.20 - 2*$0.50 = $0.40 debit ($400,000). It's bullish and naked short downside. The OI taken together is substantially bullish in Jan'11 and substantially naked the downside.

This is trade analysis, not a recommendation.

Legal Stuff:
http://www.livevolpro.com/help/disclaimer_legal.html

No comments:

Post a Comment