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Is the Nasdaq headed for a selloff next week? Someone seems to think so.
Here’s a breakdown of the massive bearish put spread that appeared yesterday in the PowerShares Trust (QQQ) that tracks the Nasdaq-100 index:
Remember that owning puts fixes the price where a security can be sold — in this case it would be at $173.50. The other half of the trade, writing puts, generated income and set a level where they’d have to buy the stock. In this case it would be $172.
So, sell for $173.50, buy at $1.72. They’d collect $1.50 from QQQ sliding to $172. What’s so great about that?
They only paid $0.30 ($0.91 – $0.61), that’s what. So they stand to earn a potential profit of 400 percent from the underlying declining less than 3 percent. (Without a drop the position will expire worthless.) There’s a reason why people use options! Visit our Knowledge Center for more.
Fears about trade wars with China drove QQQ lower early Thursday, but turned higher as stocks like Apple (AAPL) and Tesla Motors (TSLA) advanced. The put-spread buyer returned to the market in smaller size after lunch for another 8,000 contracts, this time for just $0.06.
As a result of all the activity, puts outnumbered calls in the fund by a bearish 6-to-1 ratio. Still it closed 1.3 percent higher at $159.53.
Bottom line: The bears came out swinging in QQQ yesterday morning, but they went home empty handed.
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