Did Baidu Earnings Confusion Cause Exponential Options Trading Volume? (BIDU)

Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) has seen quite a bit of stock options trading today, and it was a day in which stock trading was more active than normal as well.  We do not have the final figures in yet for total contracts versus historical volume but the options trading volume was more skewed to CALLS over PUTS and much was in the shorter dated expirations.  Most was in February and in the weeklies rather than the March options, although a glance at the March options showed more than 15,000 CALLS and the $135 and $140 strike prices for March had more volume today than there were contracts in the open interest. For February, we tallied up more than 70,000 CALLS with six of the strike prices having traded more contracts than the entire float.

Many investors believed that the company’s earnings report was going to be today but we do not yet have any formal date for its earnings release.

Is it possible that today’s trading bump in CALL and PUT options was simply a calendar mistake?  This seems odd, but in today’s world and with the way reporting has been out of China the best rule is to not be surprised by anything there any longer.

Baidu’s stock (or ADR) closed down 0.5% at $130.73 and its 52-week trading range is $100.95 to $165.96.

JON C. OGG