Visa Traders Turn Call-Sellers After Regulatory Change

Today’s tickers: V, VIX, SY, TIVO & MDR V - Visa Inc. – The decision to allow the Federal Reserve to regulate and therefore pressure fees charged by debit-card companies hampered shares at Visa today and in late morning trading they are 8% lower at $79.00. The slide slices the share price right through two five-dollar-wide strike prices and with options expiration next weekend, call sellers were quick to capture premiums available at the May 80 strike where 10,000 contracts have traded within a price range of $2.32 to $1.18. At its present share price those call options are worth nothing but the hope value they carry in the event of a recovery next week. Investors also boosted put premiums from a close yesterday at 73 cents to as high as $3.50 per contract at the May 80 line. Implied options volatility rose a further 8% to 38.7% today as uncertainty for the financial sector grew. VIX - CBOE Vix Index – As investors’ trading screens once again turn a familiar red as Eurozone fears grow, the flashing red light of the CBOE’s Vix index heads inevitably higher. On Friday the index leapt 17% to stand at 31.33. It’s still well beneath the panic-driven peak of last week when it ran up to 42.15, yet today’s reading is the highest point in between then and now. One investor appeared to extend a bet that volatility is set to remain omnipresent using a 50,000 lot calendar call spread that appears to roll forward protection from May expiration to the June contract. The order combined the same amount of May call options at the 35 strike with June calls at the 37.5 strike. The net cost of the trade was $1.20 per contract. SY - Sybase Inc. – Option trading indicates little upside room for Sybase after Germany’s SAP said it would pay $65 per share to acquire the enterprise software business. Having shot up from $40 before the deal to more than $65 yesterday option sellers appear to be writing chunks of $65 strike calls in the June and September contracts probably because they expect to see further declines in volatility and little improvement in an already generous deal that boosted the company’s capitalization by 63% in a stroke. The June call options carrying a $65 strike price have traded 13,000 times mainly at a 25-cent premium, while the September contract has traded almost 6,000 times at…