Today's tickers: FMCN, VIX, SEED, GLD, CMCSA, SEED, LDK & USG

" title="FMCN : Stock Quote, News and Research" class="showrtquote">FMCN - Focus Media Holding ADR – In March shares at Focus Media, the Chinese out-of-home advertising media company were trading at below $5.00. Today, its shares are a little higher at $13.16, which leaves us at a loss to explain what looks like a rather large bearish position initiated using options expiring in April at the 5.0 strike. Shares would need to slide by 62% to reach the strike. The premium of 20 cents appears to have been paid today by one investor – we mused at first that this could be sold puts to take in a wasting premium, but the trade was executed to the asking price. The trade covers about 2 million shares in the underlying with a $26.3 million face value. We don't currently see a catalyst on this trade although it's not impossible that this isn't married put protection against a long stock position. But why buy shares in a company you expect to fall so far? No, this looks like the work of someone who might knows the inner workings of Focus Media far better than we do. Option implied volatility is marginally higher at 715 today.

" title="VIX : Stock Quote, News and Research" class="showrtquote">VIX - CBOE Vix Index – Never say never. That seems to be the motto of one hardened equity bear today it would appear. An investor appears to have taken advantage of the rally in equity prices and consequent decline in volatility to get long of the Vix index using a cost-free combination using December call options. The trade implemented at zero cost combines twice as many written calls at the 60 strike against bought calls at the 45 strike price. Some 28,000 calls were bought expiring in around one month for an 8 cent cost, which was fully offset by the premium received from writing 56,000 calls at the 60 strike. The trader is now long volatility, except that the CBOE Vix index is 4.6% lower today at 21.19. Even when the market got messy a couple of weeks ago and a large volatility bid came back into the market, the Vix had trouble staying above an index level of 30 for too long. Still, a near-term downer for the market would certainly serve as portfolio insurance for this investor perhaps. Any out-of-the-ordinary events that did conspire to boost market fear might also widen the spread out for this investor, enough to make more than pocket change in that case.

SEED - Origin Agritech Ltd.