[cjcampbell]

Ok... I'm still trying to figure out the calls and puts so I don't know what I'm really reading here.... is this someone calling for a $10 or lower price come December?

StreetInsider.com - BlackBerry (BBRY) Sees High Options Activity in December Puts

Unusual volume is being seeing in BlackBerry (Nasdaq: BBRY) options Tuesday.

Market data has a 12,500 block of December put contracts at the $10 strike moving through. Open interest is about 5,100 contracts at that level. The put option is down 12.5 percent today amid the activity.

The only other options contracts that come close to that amount of volume are ones for expiration in June or near-term weekly contracts, which generally carry a couple thousand of volume near at-the-money strikes.

Implied volatility is about 66.7 percent for the stock. Shares are down 1.8 percent.

[spiller]

I've said this before, and will continue to say it, NEC makes hardware - not software. You need both to have a smartphone. Google is all over China and the US with Samsung and others... Lenovo wouldn't go Android on this venture.

That's what I am suggesting. Lenovo sells NEC hardware with BB10 software in China?

[greggebhardt]

I just bought more.

Kindly move up now.

Have you considered getting "help"?

Just kidding but what a roller coaster we ride!

[Charles Martin1]

Have you considered getting "help"?

Just kidding but what a roller coaster we ride!

LOL

It'd be great if we could just get on with the dips and move on. It's been so dragged out.

A profit earning on Friday would be the best thing right now.

[YangFui]

Ok... I'm still trying to figure out the calls and puts so I don't know what I'm really reading here.... is this someone calling for a $10 or lower price come December?

StreetInsider.com - BlackBerry (BBRY) Sees High Options Activity in December Puts

Unusual volume is being seeing in BlackBerry (Nasdaq: BBRY) options Tuesday.

Market data has a 12,500 block of December put contracts at the $10 strike moving through. Open interest is about 5,100 contracts at that level. The put option is down 12.5 percent today amid the activity.

The only other options contracts that come close to that amount of volume are ones for expiration in June or near-term weekly contracts, which generally carry a couple thousand of volume near at-the-money strikes.

Implied volatility is about 66.7 percent for the stock. Shares are down 1.8 percent.

If someone bought those put contracts then, yes. At a strike of $10, they would need to see the stock price drop to $10 minus what they paid for the put at some point between now and the third Friday in December in order to have the ability to close their position and lock in a profit. But the article isn't very clear about the trade, and because it begins with "Unusual volume is being seeing", I think it was written hastily. I can't tell which side of the trade is being cited and I don't know really what "moving through" means...

I see another article talking about call volume being unusually high:

Option Trends: Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY), United States Steel Corporation, and Bank of America Corp (BAC) | Market Observations | Schaeffer's Investment Research
{Excerpt}
During the past five days, options traders on the International Securities Exchange (ISE) and Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) have bought to open 12,368 calls on BBRY, compared to just 2,709 puts -- resulting in a call/put volume ratio of 4.57...

[spiller]

We knew about this before Q10 was even released. It's just another seed of doubt. I'm thinking a raid will come soon. My hope is not. Another dollar down would be 7% less.

Best hope for us right now is to get a profit warning from BlackBerry.

I don't see a profit warning coming. I've been in a back and forth email with Investor Relations asking them to clarify if they did or did not state (1) no guidance moving foward (2) no sub numbers moving foward. Pushed them 3x to clarify what was said 'historically' in the past 12 months, they said they can't comment about anything related to the June 28 ER.

They kept saying no comments until June 28, and referred me to historical news releases, etc., on the corporate site.

[Shanerredflag]

Well...it's beer thirty somewhere. Rye it is...thanks for offering.

Posted via CB10

[spiller]

Really? 2 whole resolutions? This is fragmentation? C'mon... what about Android? Certainly hasn't affected that platform and their are 3 different versions of the OS in mass use too.

Aristo will probably be Full HD. dummy tablet same.

[tygros]

If someone bought those put contracts then, yes. At a strike of $10, they would need to see the stock price drop to $10 minus what they paid for the put at some point between now and the third Friday in December in order to have the ability to close their position and lock in a profit. But the article isn't very clear about the trade, and because it begins with "Unusual volume is being seeing", I think it was written hastily. I can't tell which side of the trade is being cited and I don't know really what "moving through" means...

I see another article talking about call volume being unusually high:

Option Trends: Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY), United States Steel Corporation, and Bank of America Corp (BAC) | Market Observations | Schaeffer's Investment Research
{Excerpt}
During the past five days, options traders on the International Securities Exchange (ISE) and Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) have bought to open 12,368 calls on BBRY, compared to just 2,709 puts -- resulting in a call/put volume ratio of 4.57...

I dug in a bit, and the Dec 21st puts are selling at $0.72-0.77 today - with a huge volume spike occurring today at or below $0.77. Huge as in 20k+ contracts -that's a $1.54Million bet that BB will trade at or below $9.28 by COB on 12/20.
Thus far it seems to have lost money as a trade - down $0.06 at the bid - thus losing some ~ $120k

[fedakd]

Just have to say that they aren't going to tell you to expect a profit warning announcement :P So it makes sense for them to say absolutely nothing!

I don't see a profit warning coming. I've been in a back and forth email with Investor Relations asking them to clarify if they did or did not state (1) no guidance moving foward (2) no sub numbers moving foward. Pushed them 3x to clarify what was said 'historically' in the past 12 months, they said they can't comment about anything related to the June 28 ER.

They kept saying no comments until June 28, and referred me to historical news releases, etc., on the corporate site.

[fedakd]

That trade is extremely unwise.

I dug in a bit, and the Dec 21st puts are selling at $0.72-0.77 today - with a huge volume spike occurring today at or below $0.77. Huge as in 20k+ contracts -that's a $1.54Million bet that BB will trade at or below $9.28 by COB on 12/20.
Thus far it seems to have lost money as a trade - down $0.06 at the bid - thus losing some ~ $120k

[greggebhardt]

LOL

It'd be great if we could just get on with the dips and move on. It's been so dragged out.

A profit earning on Friday would be the best thing right now.

I agree with you 100% but we both have been around here long enough to know that is not happening.

The process is all painfully slow and I am on the side that worries about the ER rather than looking forward to it.

Time will tell soon enough! I am very tempted to get back in but I think it is still too soon.

[slipstream89]

well we stayed within the trading range morgan put out!, tmr is another day....all my stocks are red today so I wouldn't say today is a bad day seeing how the overall market is.

[cjcampbell]

Wow!!... A very marginal rise in short interest... now at 171.3 million

[lcjr]

I agree with you 100% but we both have been around here long enough to know that is not happening.

The process is all painfully slow and I am on the side that worries about the ER rather than looking forward to it.

Time will tell soon enough! I am very tempted to get back in but I think it is still too soon.

Yep, you know I can only buy a little bit at a time and I'm not buying anymore until the ER. While it sounds good to buy now while the prices are cheap, I'll wait until the ER before putting more in.

[Bugmapper]

Canadians covering

Americans still shorting a bit more

[mrfreetruth]

The next date we will see 177-180 million.

Posted via CB10

[lcjr]

Wow!!... A very marginal rise in short interest... now at 171.3 million

I still don't understand the "days to cover" though.

[Bugmapper]

I still don't understand the "days to cover" though.

Don't look at it then. That is what I usually do when I don't understand something. (Works with women too.)

[cjcampbell]

I still don't understand the "days to cover" though.

At the current volume, it would take that many days to buy back all the shorted shares... of course this is assuming there are those selling and no other buyers in the market as well.

[BBNation]

Wow, Shorts still confident as they did not cover much even after May crash to 14s. I bet the next one of June 15th they won't cover and the interest may still above 170 mil.

[slipstream89]

is this a positive sign? canadians covering some and US only up 680K...

[take99]

I think someones drank a little too much koolaid, wish I could believe it though

BlackBerry Q10 And Z10 Outsells IPhone 5 And Galaxy S4 In The US - Jean-Christophe Larsimont - Seeking Alpha

[peter9477]

I still don't understand the "days to cover" though.

Days to cover divides the number of shares shorted by the recent average daily volume. Technically it would represent the number of days of trades at the current volume levels for ALL short positions to be covered, if the buys being made were to cover short positions.

If you think about that, it's pretty meaningless in absolute terms, since at least two things make it totally bogus:

1. if everyone were trying to cover short positions, the volume would not be at the average levels
2. you'd never see all trades just being those covering short positions

I think the only value it has is as a relative value, showing how seriously risky it is to be short in a given company relative to the same company at earlier times, or relative to other companies. Even then it seems likely it's such a simplistic measure that it means little to anyone who would supposedly care.

[Bugmapper]

is this a positive sign? canadians covering some and US only up 680K...

Well, you could argue that Canadian's are seeing the return of Blackberry much more clearly than the Americans, and they are being a little more cautious in light of the good news coming out of Waterloo, and maybe seeing the smiles on peoples faces that work at BB.