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Buyers want to run with bulls in Spain

By optionMONSTER August 07, 2012, 04:14:27 AM EDT

The bulls want to run stocks higher in Spain.

optionMONSTER's Heat Seeker monitoring system detected the purchase of 9,200 January 26 calls on the iShares MSCI Spain Index Fund for $1.30. Volume was more than 50 times open interest at the strike.

The trade locks in the price through early next year that investors must pay for the fund, whose largest holdings are Banco Santander and Telefonica. Should it rally, he or she will benefit from leveraged returns, but they also stand to lose all their money if it doesn't move.

The EWP rose 4.05 percent to $24.13 yesterday but has lost one-third of its value in the last year. That's much worse than the 4 percent decline by global stocks on average.

Worries about fiscal deficits and sovereign credit drove the exchange-traded fund to a nine-year low by late July, but since then it's been climbing on hopes of a bailout from the European Central Bank. Given the uncertainty, owning calls will let the investor get long at a fraction of the cost of the fund.

More than 12,500 contracts traded in yesterday's session, almost 10 times the average amount. Calls outnumbered puts by 9 to 1, according to the Heat Seeker.




The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.


This article appears in: Investing, Options

Referenced Stocks: EWP



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