Probably depends on what Melissa is smoking here. Anyway, optionMONSTER picking up some put buyers in the health insurance space. UnitedHealth, Aetna, and Humana drew heavy put action today as traders apparently positioned for a quick drop it in the shares. UNH's July 24 puts traded 10,2 ... Read more

So been to Paris once in my life, about 15 years ago. As Steve Martin once said, those French have a different word for everything. Honestly, the most confusing thing was gas prices. Francs per liter? Give me something I can use. Anyway, over the past year, we've gotten familiar with USO and UN ... Read more

Before we get started, I'd like to extend Happy Bastille Day wishes to all French readers here. Going to celebrate all day with our favorite French personality, Melissa Theriau, who judging by a quick Google Search and a stale Wiki page has apparently taken this whole maternity leave thing qu ... Read more

Looks like someone's expecting Green Shoots in the DVD rental space. This on NFLX, via optionMONSTER ( free sub. required). Stock and options trading turned bullish on Netflix today as investors positioned for the movie-rental company to rally this week. optionMONSTER's Heat Seeker tracking ... Read more

If you're sitting here watching the screens each day you'd likely feel as if market volatility has picked up the past few weeks. I certainly do. Except it's not. The chart above shows 10 day HV for SPY over the past half year, and it has actually started dribbling again towards 15, which is a ... Read more

Another VIX "gap" I have seen lately notes the big diff. between moving averages. Like the 200 day and 50 day shown here for example. Now first of all, isn't the "why" of this one incredibly obvious? The 200 day still includes data from last Fall's Mad Options Rush. The 50 day does not. But a ... Read more

The artist formerly known as Ochocinco (wait, I'm being told he's currently known as Ochocinco) had a great idea to take the "inside the huddle" experience to a new level: In game twitter updates. But doesn't sound like it's happening so fast. This, via ProFootballTalk. Bengals receiver ... Read more

Looks like somebody been reading Cramer's Housing Bottom Call (Version 7.0). Some of the homebuilders are seeing bullish flow ahead of housing starts data due out next week–on options expiration Friday, to make things interesting. Hovnanian (HOV) is down a penny and the focus is on Jan (201 ... Read more

Have seen some recent articles and/or tweets noting gaps in the VIX (sounds like a straw man since I don't have one to link to, but really, have seen it go by often). Let me nip it in the bud first, it's a silly concept. There's a reason stocks/futures/commodities et. al. have some reasonable ... Read more

Some great points on volatility that everyone needs to internalize, via Bernie Schaeffer's July newsletter. Keep in mind it went out to subs on June 25th, before the recent modest upswing in volatility. You can't refer to the cheapness or the richness of the Chicago Board Options Exchange M ... Read more