The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq 100 all ripped to new all-time highs today in yet another record shattering day for stock in the US. Let’s look at the top three most unusual options trades for today, Wednesday, January 11th, 2018.
If you’re looking to trade options, make sure you use Ally Invest. Ally is currently offering free trades for 90 days with a qualifying minimum deposit. After that, options contracts start at just $0.50 per contract.
1: Kinder Morgan (NYSE:KMI)
22,200 January 19 2018 $19.5 calls were purchased today in Kinder Morgan stock for $0.11 each. The total premium spent on these call options was $244200 and the options are set to expire in 8 calendar days. The trade was executed at 10:49 AM EST for $0.11, and the call options are already worth $0.28.
Whoever this trader is, they just made a quick $377,400 on this trade alone.
Kinder Morgan is releasing earnings on the 16th of January, so this is likely an earnings play, as the options expire three days after earnings are released.
| TIME | OPTION | QTY | PRICE | EXCHANGE |
| 10:49:14 | 19 JAN 18 19.5 C | 22,200 | 0.11 | NYSE |
2: AK Steel Holding Corp (NYSE:AKS)
AK Steel is a lesser-known company that produces flat-rolled carbon, stainless and electrical steels, and tubular metal products.
Someone bought a lot of call options throughout the whole trading day today in AKS, 22,732, to be exact, for an average price of $0.795. The total premium spent on this trade was a whopping $1,807,194.
AKS closed the trading day at $6.43 per share, which makes these call options $0.43 in the money. There are 64 calendar days before these options expire.
Earnings are released on January 30th, so this is likely a massive somewhat long-term directional earnings play.
| TIME | OPTION | QTY | PRICE | EXCHANGE |
| 15:01:09 | 16 MAR 18 6 C | 6,344 | 0.81 | NYSE |
| 11:04:32 | 16 MAR 18 6 C | 5,054 | 0.8 | CBOE |
| 14:24:26 | 16 MAR 18 6 C | 4,000 | 0.8 | CBOE |
| 10:00:53 | 16 MAR 18 6 C | 3,685 | 0.76 | NYSE |
| 9:40:40 | 16 MAR 18 6 C | 1,867 | 0.8 | BATS |
| 9:40:32 | 16 MAR 18 6 C | 1,782 | 0.8 | BATS |
3: American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL)
At 1:43pm EST on Thursday, someone bought 16,611 calls in American Airlines.
The massive airline company is set to release earnings on the 25th of January, and the calls purchased don’t expire for 218 calendar days, so this is likely not an earnings play and more of a LEAP strategy, which stands for Long Term Equity Anticipation Security.
The calls were purchased slightly in the money for $6.15 each, putting the total premium spent at $10,215,765 on one single trade.
If American Airlines stock is below the $55 strike price in 218 days, that $10 million will have evaporated.
| TIME | OPTION | QTY | PRICE | EXCHANGE |
| 14:43:13 | 17 AUG 18 55 C | 16,611 | 6.15 | NYSE |
If you’re looking to trade options, make sure you use Ally Invest. Ally is currently offering free trades for 90 days with a qualifying minimum deposit. After that, options contracts start at just $0.50 per contract.