Monday's Options Intelligence Report - The Options Insider

Monday's Options Intelligence Report
The Options Insider
By Andrew Wilkinson

Oct. 12, 2009

QCOM – Qualcomm Inc.
January 2011 puts were active at the 35 strike price today where investors paid premiums between 3.70 and 3.90 per contract to secure rights to sell shares at a fixed price of $35 each before expiration. We are unsure of their motivation, but with volume at around 16,000 contracts, today’s activity is well in excess of the 10,444 lots of open interest at the strike price.

Shares at Qualcomm have lagged the market and are perhaps suffering as the company admits it’s that the demands for mobile data services will require more densely built networks. Recently Qualcomm lost ground following the announcement from Israeli-based Altair Semiconductor that it had launched a next-generation baseband chip for use with Long Term Evolution (LTE), which is likely to become focus for telecom providers in the years ahead. Perhaps it’s the inability of Qualcomm to ready future technology fast enough that has investors taking swipes at the downside.