Today’s tickers: EFA, EEM, DYN & RMBS
EFA - iShares MSCI EAFE Index Fund - One investor appears nervous over a continued slide lower for global stocks and used a put option combination in the index fund tracking Europe, Asia and Far Eastern markets in an effort to profit from a further 10% slide. The iShares ETF is trading at an unchanged $50.89 on Friday while one investor has paid a $980,000 net premium to help reduce the cost of taking a nearby bearish position on the prospects for the fund. If the fund does crash to $45.00 before the option play expires in September, the investor stands to make profits of $4,020,000. The position could be full or partial protection against a long stock position in which case options profits are offset by rising losses as the share price declines. In order to make a profit at expiration the investor must see the share price settle at less than $49.02.
EEM - iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund - An alternative to the strategy above was offered possibly by the same investor using a put spread in the emerging markets ETF. With the fund having rebounded from about $40.00 per share yesterday, the fund gave of 6.2% of its recovery. This seems to have provoked this investor to seek short-term gains by betting against a further slip in emerging markets. The investor again focused on the September expiration and with shares trading now at $40.63 used the $38.00 and $33.00 strikes to write a credit spread. Instead of buying the higher strike, it appears to have been sold in exchange for puts at the lower $33.00 strike. The purpose is to bank the net premium of 49 cents per contract from making the play. The investor this time faces losses beneath an expiration price $37.51 and see them increase to a maximum of $4.51 per contract in the event markets do face a meltdown over late summer. In order to reach breakeven the shares would need to decline by 7.7% from today’s trading price and to leave the investor facing maximum pain would need to slide by 18.8%.
DYN - Dynegy Inc. – The announcement by Blackstone that it was making a $4.50 a share bid for the power generating company created a groundswell of demand for shares in Dynegy, which rose 60% pennies short of the deal price. Options volume quickly eclipsed the overall…
Harvard’s endowment fund, the largest and most-watched university endowment in the U.S., disclosed in SEC filings that it continued to up its stakes in select emerging markets ETFs in the second quarter while paring its holdings of others.