A – Agilent Technologies, Inc. – Shares in the provider of measurement solutions and technology are soaring today, up as much as 10% during morning trading to $55.74, the highest level since January of 2001, after the company posted better than expected fourth-quarter earnings following the closing bell on Thursday.
Trading in Agilent options suggests some strategists are positioning for shares in the name to extend gains this calendar year. The most traded options contracts as measured by volume on Agilent Technologies thus far in the session are the Dec $57.5 strike calls, with around 2,850 lots in play against open interest of just 30 contracts. Time and sales data suggests most of the volume was purchased earlier in the session at a premium of $0.50 each. Buyers of the $57.5 calls may profit at expiration next month if shares in Agilent rally 4.0% over today’s high of $55.74 to exceed the breakeven price of $58.00.
TWTR – Twitter Inc. – Options on newly public San Francisco, California-based Twitter Inc. started trading this morning, giving traders and investors the ability to take short and long-term views on where they see the price of the company's shares trading. Contracts with more than two years to expiration are available as well as call and put options that expire next week. More than 15,000 contracts changed hands on TWTR within the first 15 minutes of the opening bell.
Shares in Twitter, which rallied more than 90% on their first day of trading to touch $50.09, nearly two times the $26.00 level at which shares were priced, are today down roughly 0.75% at $44.35 as of 9:45 a.m. EST. Early trading in TWTR options indicates greater volume in Twitter puts versus calls, with the put/call ratio at 1.2 as of the time of this writing.
