Groupon Sees Very Unusual Options Trading

Groupon, Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) is not a company where we would expect to see a large and unusual options transaction take place. After all, many traders and investors would say it is effectively now just priced as a stock option itself with shares under $4.40. But after looking through the CBOE options trading and looking for large blocks today, it was a bit unusual to see that Groupon was on the leader board of unusual options trading.

It appears as though someone is making a bet that Groupon can be next big upside earnings report or something of the sort. We looked at the April 2013 with some puzzlement because the $4.00 Calls saw some 30,000 contracts trade hands. The last print on this was at $1.15 as of now and the prior open interest was 1,194 contracts.

30,000 contracts is the equivalent to 3 million shares on a fully leveraged basis. The open interest is larger in April now than it will be in the more active January 2013 contracts, where the $4 calls had an open interest of only 12,047 contracts as of today.

Groupon shares are down marginally on the day and we have seen only 7.3 million shares trade hands. Its post-IPO trading range has been $4.00 to $31.14.

JON C. OGG