There looks to be a lot of November Expiration related "pinning" going on as we head into Friday's close.
The S&P 500 (SPY) is starting to move towards 110 ... a last hour spike to that level would be likely a "false" pin that would be reversed on Monday, in my view.
Many big equities are moving right towards strike price pin levels, including (AAPL) at 200, (GOOG) at 570, (RIMM) at 60, (DIS) at 30, (AIG) at 35, (FITB) at 10, (NFLX) at 60, (AMZN) at 130, (COST) at 60, (DISH) at 20, (MON) at 80, (HPQ) at 50, (KO) at 57.5, among others.
As we've previously mentioned, this kind of "pinning" action, where a stock closes right around an option strike price on an Expiration Friday is due to a variety of factors. Among these are technical, manipulation, psychological, but also the actual option open interest at these strikes. The open interest causes market makers and hedgers to buy and sell the stock around those levels to keep the books balanced (delta neutral, etc).
We've seen it time and time again, and this afternoon looks like no exception.
The S&P 500 (SPY) is starting to move towards 110 ... a last hour spike to that level would be likely a "false" pin that would be reversed on Monday, in my view.
Many big equities are moving right towards strike price pin levels, including (AAPL) at 200, (GOOG) at 570, (RIMM) at 60, (DIS) at 30, (AIG) at 35, (FITB) at 10, (NFLX) at 60, (AMZN) at 130, (COST) at 60, (DISH) at 20, (MON) at 80, (HPQ) at 50, (KO) at 57.5, among others.
As we've previously mentioned, this kind of "pinning" action, where a stock closes right around an option strike price on an Expiration Friday is due to a variety of factors. Among these are technical, manipulation, psychological, but also the actual option open interest at these strikes. The open interest causes market makers and hedgers to buy and sell the stock around those levels to keep the books balanced (delta neutral, etc).
We've seen it time and time again, and this afternoon looks like no exception.