Today’s tickers: MJN, BMY, FTR & FDO
MJN - Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. – Over the weekend Bristol Myers Squibb decided to sell its remaining 83% stake in Mead Johnson, maker of baby formula, Enfamil. Mead Johnson shares declined by 2% to $44.35 and the additional uncertainty surrounding the issue caused options implied volatility to spike higher in early trading. On Friday the expected degree of movement on the stock stood at 36.5% before jumping today to 56.3% as investors wonder whether the company will be able to stand on its own two feet without Bristol Myers. One option trader who clearly knows the stock well enough appears to have used a short straddle combination to predict that today’s move is bogus on two fronts. Using the December contract the seller wrote around 1,500 call options at 35 cents and sold a similar number of puts at the same strike. Being deep-in-the-money put options the premium here fetched 8.00. The premium especially on the put is boosted by the direction of the share price today but mostly by the 55% leap in implied volatility. The investor thus expects the share price to rise should Bristol find a buyer and similarly expects lower volatility. Last week those puts traded at 6.60. One analyst Bristol Myers has been hunting for a buyer at $60 per share, which may indicate the value this company might add to a willing buyer.
BMY - Bristol Myers Squibb – For its part shares surged to a one-year high after it jettisoned Mead Johnson, rising 5.7% to $24.47. The progress was slow throughout the morning that some call sellers were left wanting at the November 24 strike. Early sellers were forced to rethink as they tossed out calls at 27 cents per contract only to see buyers step in shortly after 10am to pay 34 cents before things really got interesting with call options currently commanding a 65 cent premium. Some 9,800 calls changed hands at this strike – almost equivalent to the 10,694 previously established calls. Put sellers were also in evidence using the same November contract and collected rich premiums in the expectation that the share price will rise despite the additional risk that the company has a less diversified product line in light of the Mead Johnson announcement. Option implied volatility rose, but only jumped from 21% to 23%.
FTR - Frontier Communications Corp. – An investor appears to have maintained…
