Baidu Bulls Hit The Options Hard
Andrew Wilkinson, Interactive Brokers, 01.16.10, 11:05 AM EST
Buying call options on Baidu has created life-changing wealth in the past year for some investors. The fervor for shares is still strong.
Baidu ( BIDU - news - people ): Bullish investors continue to trade January contract calls and puts on the Chinese language Internet search provider today even with expiration close at hand. News reports today indicate some at Credit Suisse ( CS - news - people ) anticipate Google ( GOOG - news - people ) may exit the Chinese market as soon as February. Disbanding Google operations in China could allow Baidu to swoop in and procure one-third of the U.S. company's market share there. Shares of BIDU traded 0.75% higher to $467.86 around noon Friday.
Baidu bulls bought roughly 3,200 calls at the January $470 strike for an average premium of $2.08 apiece. These contracts will expire out-of-the-money and worthless unless shares rally above the $470 level. Investors long the calls break even if the stock rallies up to $472.08 before the contracts expire. Additional buying interest appeared as high as the January $480 strike, where 2,000 calls were picked up for an average premium of 48 cents per contract. Perhaps traders buying these out-of-the-money contracts hope to enjoy short-swing profits by selling the lots by the end of the day for more than the average premium paid.
Optimism is apparent on the put side as well. Investors sold 3,400 puts at the January $460 strike to take in premium of $2.35 each. Another 1,900 puts were shed at the in-the-money January $470 strike for an average premium of $5.85 per contract. In-the-money put sellers are happy to have shares of the underlying stock put to them at an effective price of $464.15 each if BIDU's share price trades below the $470 strike price through expiration.
Jim Oberweis told his subscribers to buy Baidu at $79 and told them to buy more at $110 in early 2009. Click here for Oberweis' current advice and access to the complete model portfolio in the Oberweis Report.
Alcoa ( AA - news - people ): Medium-term optimism on the largest producer of aluminum took root in the July contract today despite the 1.5% decline in the value of the underlying shares to $15.58. It looks like one investor purchased 20,000 calls on the stock at the July $20 strike for a premium of 51 cents per contract. The large bullish stance positions the trader to amass profits if Alcoa's shares surge more than 31.5% over the current price to surpass the break-even point at $20.51 by expiration in six months. Option implied volatility is down 7.17% on the day to stand at 38.05%.
Sprint Nextel ( S - news - people ): Shares of the wireless communications company were trading 1.9% higher Friday to $3.76. Options activity in the August contract indicates that one investor is positioning for a significant rally in shares of the underlying stock in the next seven months to expiration.
It looks like the trader purchased 15,000 calls at the August $7 strike for a premium of 12 cents per contract. Profits on the calls accrue if Sprint's share price jumps 87% from the current level to surpass the break-even point at $7.12 by August expiration. On trades like this it's less likely that the investor has an eye on the strike price as a target price, but uses a larger amount of relatively inexpensive call options to play out a directional play on the underlying stock. In this case the delta on the $7 call option indicates a 15% chance that Sprint's shares will land in-the-money at expiration, while gamma tells us that a $1 rally to $4.80 (an increase of 26%) would shorten those odds to 28%. We note that shares have not traded above $7 since Sept. 19, 2008.
Pfizer ( PFE - news - people ): It looks like one investor rolled a large chunk of now in-the-money call options in the January contract on the global pharmaceutical company forward to a higher strike price in the February contract Friday. Shares slipped slightly lower during the session, falling 0.25% to $19.31. The January $19 strike had approximately 62,000 calls sell for an average premium of 43 cents per contract, spread against the apparent purchase of about the same number of calls at the higher February $20 strike for a premium of 28 cents each. The calendar roll results in a net credit to the investor of about 15 cents per contract. It is unclear how much the trader initially paid for the January contract calls, but looking at the trade in isolation, this individual pockets 15 cents per contract on the transaction. Elsewhere, traders attempted to lock in recent share price gains on the stock by buying 7,700 in-the-money puts at the February $20 strike for a premium of $1.06 apiece. The put contracts provide protection to traders in case Pfizer's shares slip beneath the break-even point at $18.94 by expiration next month.
Pfizer has a fat 3.7% yield, but is Merck, with a 3.9% yield, your better buy in pharmaceutical stocks? Click here to check ratings on hundreds of dividend-paying stocks in Investment Quality Trends.
CurrencyShares Euro Trust ( FXE - news - people ): With the euro under pressure Friday as Greek bond yields rise--indicative of rising Eurozone tensions--it appears one investor sold February call options at the $1.50 strike to reduce the outlay for the same strike put options. By doing so the investor bearish on the euro reduced the cost of downside exposure for the euro by 2.2%. Elsewhere another investor appeared to buy a substantial amount of 5,000 put options expiring in June at the $1.10 strike. If such a decline in the euro was to play out, since it's currently trading at $1.438, would be indicative of a huge slide of confidence in the Eurozone.
Andrew Wilkinson is senior market analyst at Greenwich, Conn.-based Interactive Brokers. Reach him via e-mail: ibanalyst@interactivebrokers.com.
Saturday, 16 January 2010
Friday, 15 January 2010
Intercontinental Grid Computing: Europe and China Link Up for Research
Intercontinental Grid Computing: Europe and China Link Up for Research
ScienceDaily (Jan. 15, 2010) — Grid computing can jet-propel research and development. An EU-funded programme that lets European and Chinese grids work together has already produced results in aircraft design, drug development and weather prediction.
In 2007, the EU-funded project, BRIDGE (for Bilateral Research and Industrial development enhancing and integrating Grid Enabled technologies -- see: http://www.bridge-grid.eu/), set out to link European and Chinese computing grids and enable researchers to carry out joint research.
The project was inspired by the realisation that China is rapidly becoming a world leader in research and development, as well as a booming market for European products. Developing the infrastructure to link computing grids was seen as a key step towards future scientific and industrial cooperation.
"If Europe does not want to lose ground, the response can only be to synchronise with these developments," says Gilbert Kalb, BRIDGE project coordinator.
Building a shared infrastructure
The BRIDGE team's first challenge was to make the software systems that manage the European and Chinese grids compatible. The European Grid infrastructure, GRIA, and the Chinese system, CNGrid GOS, provide comparable services, but are organised differently.
The team were able to get GRIA and GOS to work together by building a new software superstructure to access them and tap their capabilities. The system included new gateways into the two grids, plus a shared platform to manage overall workflow, access needed applications, and translate higher-level commands into steps that each grid could carry out.
Not surprisingly, security was an important consideration on both sides. Kalb says that many or the scientific and industrial problems that BRIDGE was developed to address require intensive cooperation, yet involve highly sensitive information.
BRIDGE resolved this issue by letting selected processes remain private. That allows one group to contribute data or results to all collaborating parties without having to share proprietary software or analytic tools.
"You can interface in terms of the input and the output, while the algorithms remain hidden," says Kalb.
Putting BRIDGE to work
The BRIDGE team tested the intercontinental grid they built by attacking three problems, each of which made different demands on the system.
Discovering new drugs remains an extremely costly process. One way to speed research is to use computers to simulate the chemical fit between millions of small molecules and proteins that play vital roles in disease-causing organisms. A molecule that binds strongly to a key protein has the potential to be turned into a potent new drug. This kind of research demands enormous computing power.
Researchers in Europe and China contributed four different docking tools -- programs that calculate bonding between a small molecule and a particular protein. Each program used a different approach and produced somewhat different results.
The researchers then examined millions of molecules to see if they held promise against malaria or the H5N1 bird flu virus. By combining the results of the four different simulations, they were able to identify promising molecules more efficiently.
"Making the outcomes of these different docking tools comparable is very new," says Kalb.
The four-pronged approach produced promising results. The BRIDGE infrastructure has already been adopted in Egypt to target the malaria parasite.
BRIDGE was also used to solve a complex aeronautic problem -- designing and positioning wing flaps to maximise lift and minimise noise as an aircraft lands.
Like drug-discovery, these aerodynamic simulations required huge computational resources. In addition, because different parts of each simulation took place in different research centres, optimising the flow of work from centre to centre was also challenging.
The BRIDGE team was able to meet these challenges, carry out intensive distributed computations, and determine optimal wing flap parameters. "It proved to be an effective method for solving multi-objective and multi-disciplinary optimisation in aircraft design," Kalb says.
Weather data on the fly
Weather and climate represent a third area where international cooperation is vital. The BRIDGE researchers set out to link three large meteorological databases located in Europe, North America and Asia.
The key challenge they faced with this project was to handle enormous volumes of data efficiently.
"You could do a calculation in the United States and transfer the results to Europe, or you could fetch the data from the USA and do the calculations here," says Kalb. "The best way to do it depends on what calculation and what data and what's the best available way to transfer the data from place to place. Bridge does all this on the fly."
"Because there was a big organisation behind it, and our work fits very well, it was taken up right away," says Kalb. "I believe that meteorologists are already using it to access data and perform certain calculations."
To Kalb, the importance of what BRIDGE accomplished goes far beyond any single piece of research. He feels that the project has built the foundation for the kind of multinational collaboration that is needed to tackle global problems.
"Problems like energy and climate change can only be attacked or really solved with efforts from different players around the world, and we've built a platform to do that," he says. We proved that this is feasible and useful. Now it's time for other people to jump on this, develop it further, and use it."
The BRIDGE project received funding from the Sixth Framework Programme for research.
ScienceDaily (Jan. 15, 2010) — Grid computing can jet-propel research and development. An EU-funded programme that lets European and Chinese grids work together has already produced results in aircraft design, drug development and weather prediction.
In 2007, the EU-funded project, BRIDGE (for Bilateral Research and Industrial development enhancing and integrating Grid Enabled technologies -- see: http://www.bridge-grid.eu/), set out to link European and Chinese computing grids and enable researchers to carry out joint research.
The project was inspired by the realisation that China is rapidly becoming a world leader in research and development, as well as a booming market for European products. Developing the infrastructure to link computing grids was seen as a key step towards future scientific and industrial cooperation.
"If Europe does not want to lose ground, the response can only be to synchronise with these developments," says Gilbert Kalb, BRIDGE project coordinator.
Building a shared infrastructure
The BRIDGE team's first challenge was to make the software systems that manage the European and Chinese grids compatible. The European Grid infrastructure, GRIA, and the Chinese system, CNGrid GOS, provide comparable services, but are organised differently.
The team were able to get GRIA and GOS to work together by building a new software superstructure to access them and tap their capabilities. The system included new gateways into the two grids, plus a shared platform to manage overall workflow, access needed applications, and translate higher-level commands into steps that each grid could carry out.
Not surprisingly, security was an important consideration on both sides. Kalb says that many or the scientific and industrial problems that BRIDGE was developed to address require intensive cooperation, yet involve highly sensitive information.
BRIDGE resolved this issue by letting selected processes remain private. That allows one group to contribute data or results to all collaborating parties without having to share proprietary software or analytic tools.
"You can interface in terms of the input and the output, while the algorithms remain hidden," says Kalb.
Putting BRIDGE to work
The BRIDGE team tested the intercontinental grid they built by attacking three problems, each of which made different demands on the system.
Discovering new drugs remains an extremely costly process. One way to speed research is to use computers to simulate the chemical fit between millions of small molecules and proteins that play vital roles in disease-causing organisms. A molecule that binds strongly to a key protein has the potential to be turned into a potent new drug. This kind of research demands enormous computing power.
Researchers in Europe and China contributed four different docking tools -- programs that calculate bonding between a small molecule and a particular protein. Each program used a different approach and produced somewhat different results.
The researchers then examined millions of molecules to see if they held promise against malaria or the H5N1 bird flu virus. By combining the results of the four different simulations, they were able to identify promising molecules more efficiently.
"Making the outcomes of these different docking tools comparable is very new," says Kalb.
The four-pronged approach produced promising results. The BRIDGE infrastructure has already been adopted in Egypt to target the malaria parasite.
BRIDGE was also used to solve a complex aeronautic problem -- designing and positioning wing flaps to maximise lift and minimise noise as an aircraft lands.
Like drug-discovery, these aerodynamic simulations required huge computational resources. In addition, because different parts of each simulation took place in different research centres, optimising the flow of work from centre to centre was also challenging.
The BRIDGE team was able to meet these challenges, carry out intensive distributed computations, and determine optimal wing flap parameters. "It proved to be an effective method for solving multi-objective and multi-disciplinary optimisation in aircraft design," Kalb says.
Weather data on the fly
Weather and climate represent a third area where international cooperation is vital. The BRIDGE researchers set out to link three large meteorological databases located in Europe, North America and Asia.
The key challenge they faced with this project was to handle enormous volumes of data efficiently.
"You could do a calculation in the United States and transfer the results to Europe, or you could fetch the data from the USA and do the calculations here," says Kalb. "The best way to do it depends on what calculation and what data and what's the best available way to transfer the data from place to place. Bridge does all this on the fly."
"Because there was a big organisation behind it, and our work fits very well, it was taken up right away," says Kalb. "I believe that meteorologists are already using it to access data and perform certain calculations."
To Kalb, the importance of what BRIDGE accomplished goes far beyond any single piece of research. He feels that the project has built the foundation for the kind of multinational collaboration that is needed to tackle global problems.
"Problems like energy and climate change can only be attacked or really solved with efforts from different players around the world, and we've built a platform to do that," he says. We proved that this is feasible and useful. Now it's time for other people to jump on this, develop it further, and use it."
The BRIDGE project received funding from the Sixth Framework Programme for research.
Science and Engineering Indicators 2010
Science and Engineering Indicators 2010
ScienceDaily (Jan. 15, 2010) — The state of the science and engineering (S&E) enterprise in America is strong, yet its lead is slipping, according to data released at the White House January 15 by the National Science Board (NSB). Prepared biennially and delivered to the President and Congress on even numbered years by Jan. 15 as statutorily mandated, Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) provides information on the scope, quality and vitality of America's science and engineering enterprise. SEI 2010 sheds light on America's position in the global economy.
"The data begin to tell a worrisome story," said Kei Koizumi, assistant director for federal research and development (R&D)in the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Calling SEI 2010 a "State of the Union on science, technology, engineering and mathematics," he noted that quot;U.S. dominance has eroded significantly."
Koizumi and OSTP hosted the public rollout at which NSB Chairman Steven Beering, National Science Foundation (NSF) Director Arden L. Bement, Jr., and NSB members presented SEI 2010 data and described a mixed picture. NSB's SEI Committee Chairman Lou Lanzerotti noted the good news for those in the S&E community about public attitudes, "Scientists are about the same as firefighters in terms of prestige," he said. His presentation focused attention on NSB's Digest, also released January 15, highlighting important trends and data points from across SEI 2010.
Over the past decade, R&D intensity--how much of a country's economic activity or gross domestic product is expended on R&D--has grown considerably in Asia, while remaining steady in the U.S. Annual growth of R&D expenditures in the U.S. averaged 5 to 6 percent while in Asia, it has skyrocketed. In some Asian countries, R&D growth rate is two, three, even four, times that of the U.S.
In terms of R&D expenditures as a share of economic output, while Japan has surpassed the U.S. for quite some time, South Korea is now in the lead--ahead of the U.S. and Japan. And why does this matter? Investment in R&D is a major driver of innovation, which builds on new knowledge and technologies, contributes to national competitiveness and furthers social welfare. R&D expenditures indicate the priority given to advancing science and technology (S&T) relative to other national goals.
NSB SEI 2010 Committee Member Jose-Marie Griffiths discussed another key indicator: intellectual research outputs. "While the U.S. continues to lead the world in research publications, China has become the second most prolific contributor." China's rapidly developing science base now produces 8 percent of the world's research publications, up from its just 2 percent of the world's share in 1995, when it ranked 14th.
Patents are another measure of valuable contributions to knowledge and inventions to societies. Inventors from around the globe seek patent protection in the U.S. U.S. patents awarded to foreign inventors offer a broad indication of the distribution of inventive activity around the world. While inventors in the U.S., the European Union (EU) and Japan produce almost all of these patents, and U.S. patenting by Chinese and Indian inventors remains modest, the number of patents earned by Asian inventors is on the rise, driven by activity in Taiwan and South Korea.
The Digest contains these and other key indicators, such as the globalization of capability; funding, performance and portfolio of U.S. R&D trends; and the composition of the U.S. S&E workforce. What's more, the Digest is electronically linked with detailed data tables and discussions in the main volumes of SEI. It can also be downloaded to laptops, iPods or other devices. "This makes the data much more accessible and digestable to policymakers, as well as to members of the general public who may wish to read about and understand the data that describe the state of their economy," said Lanzerotti.
Calling SEI a "biennial production and a daily source of pride for NSF," Bement characterized it as a guide to the future. "It is not just where we stand; it's about where we're heading," he said, quoting 19th century British scientist Lord Kelvin, "'If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.'"
Representing OSTP Director John Holdren and his OSTP colleagues, in closing Koizumi said, "We promise to put your work to good use."
SEI is prepared by NSF's Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) on behalf of the National Science Board. The publication is subject to extensive review by outside experts, interested federal agencies, Board members and SRS internal reviewers for accuracy, coverage and balance.
In further carrying out its responsibility to advise the President and Congress on science and engineering issues, in February, the NSB will release a companion, policy piece, Globalization of Science and Engineering Research.
ScienceDaily (Jan. 15, 2010) — The state of the science and engineering (S&E) enterprise in America is strong, yet its lead is slipping, according to data released at the White House January 15 by the National Science Board (NSB). Prepared biennially and delivered to the President and Congress on even numbered years by Jan. 15 as statutorily mandated, Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) provides information on the scope, quality and vitality of America's science and engineering enterprise. SEI 2010 sheds light on America's position in the global economy.
"The data begin to tell a worrisome story," said Kei Koizumi, assistant director for federal research and development (R&D)in the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Calling SEI 2010 a "State of the Union on science, technology, engineering and mathematics," he noted that quot;U.S. dominance has eroded significantly."
Koizumi and OSTP hosted the public rollout at which NSB Chairman Steven Beering, National Science Foundation (NSF) Director Arden L. Bement, Jr., and NSB members presented SEI 2010 data and described a mixed picture. NSB's SEI Committee Chairman Lou Lanzerotti noted the good news for those in the S&E community about public attitudes, "Scientists are about the same as firefighters in terms of prestige," he said. His presentation focused attention on NSB's Digest, also released January 15, highlighting important trends and data points from across SEI 2010.
Over the past decade, R&D intensity--how much of a country's economic activity or gross domestic product is expended on R&D--has grown considerably in Asia, while remaining steady in the U.S. Annual growth of R&D expenditures in the U.S. averaged 5 to 6 percent while in Asia, it has skyrocketed. In some Asian countries, R&D growth rate is two, three, even four, times that of the U.S.
In terms of R&D expenditures as a share of economic output, while Japan has surpassed the U.S. for quite some time, South Korea is now in the lead--ahead of the U.S. and Japan. And why does this matter? Investment in R&D is a major driver of innovation, which builds on new knowledge and technologies, contributes to national competitiveness and furthers social welfare. R&D expenditures indicate the priority given to advancing science and technology (S&T) relative to other national goals.
NSB SEI 2010 Committee Member Jose-Marie Griffiths discussed another key indicator: intellectual research outputs. "While the U.S. continues to lead the world in research publications, China has become the second most prolific contributor." China's rapidly developing science base now produces 8 percent of the world's research publications, up from its just 2 percent of the world's share in 1995, when it ranked 14th.
Patents are another measure of valuable contributions to knowledge and inventions to societies. Inventors from around the globe seek patent protection in the U.S. U.S. patents awarded to foreign inventors offer a broad indication of the distribution of inventive activity around the world. While inventors in the U.S., the European Union (EU) and Japan produce almost all of these patents, and U.S. patenting by Chinese and Indian inventors remains modest, the number of patents earned by Asian inventors is on the rise, driven by activity in Taiwan and South Korea.
The Digest contains these and other key indicators, such as the globalization of capability; funding, performance and portfolio of U.S. R&D trends; and the composition of the U.S. S&E workforce. What's more, the Digest is electronically linked with detailed data tables and discussions in the main volumes of SEI. It can also be downloaded to laptops, iPods or other devices. "This makes the data much more accessible and digestable to policymakers, as well as to members of the general public who may wish to read about and understand the data that describe the state of their economy," said Lanzerotti.
Calling SEI a "biennial production and a daily source of pride for NSF," Bement characterized it as a guide to the future. "It is not just where we stand; it's about where we're heading," he said, quoting 19th century British scientist Lord Kelvin, "'If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.'"
Representing OSTP Director John Holdren and his OSTP colleagues, in closing Koizumi said, "We promise to put your work to good use."
SEI is prepared by NSF's Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) on behalf of the National Science Board. The publication is subject to extensive review by outside experts, interested federal agencies, Board members and SRS internal reviewers for accuracy, coverage and balance.
In further carrying out its responsibility to advise the President and Congress on science and engineering issues, in February, the NSB will release a companion, policy piece, Globalization of Science and Engineering Research.
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