Today’s tickers: KORS, AMLN & ACI
KORS - Michael Kors Holdings Ltd. – A number of options strategists appear to have benefitted handsomely from bullish positions held in the House of Kors today, with shares in the luxury retailer ballooning on better-than-expected third-quarter earnings. Shares in Michael Kors Holdings Ltd. have more than doubled since the December IPO, trading 22.7% higher on the day at $41.25 as of 11:40 a.m. Options on Kors are abuzz with after-earnings activity, with around 3.6 call options changing hands for each single put option in play. Some traders that placed bullish bets on the retailer in the weeks leading up to earnings in some cases saw the value of their positions sky-rocket. One buyer of a 1,500-lot Feb. $34/$37 call spread at an average net premium of $1.05 per contract on Feb. 9th may reel in maximum possible profits on the position at expiration, given shares in KORS are now trading well above the upper $37 strike. Call open interest in the front month is heaviest at the $33 strike where more than 5,480 positions were opened before today. It looks like most of the volume was generated in a single block of 4,831 calls that traded at $1.15 each on Feb 7th. The calls traded to the middle of the market one week ago with the bid/ask showing $1.05/$1.30. Today, these deep in-the-money calls trade at bid/ask of $8.20/$8.40 as of 12:15 p.m. The impact of better-than-expected earnings on the shares certainly makes for a happy Valentine’s Day for the trader in the event he or she purchased the contracts last week or a rather Grey day were the calls originally sold. Finally, investors positioning for shares in Kors to extend gains snapped up in-the-money calls at the $40 strike in February and March, as well as picked up around 255 calls out at the May $44 strike at an average premium of $1.56 each.…
