Looks Like Rising Big Trade Bets on Genworth

by David Russell

A large investor is locking in profits on Genworth (GNW) while extending a bullish position in the insurer, which has more than doubled in the last month.

optionMONSTER's Heat Seeker monitoring system detected the purchase of 10,000 June 7.50 calls for $0.30 against open interest of 9,342 contracts. The transaction occurred simultaneously with the sale of 5,000 June 5 calls for $1.50.

Those options were written against open interest of 31,307, indicating that the trader rolled a long position to the higher strike price.

GNW is up 8.28 percent to $6.41 this morning. The stock has been rebounding since March, when it traded for less than $1 on concerns about its exposure to the financial crisis.

Since then, GNW paid off $330 of debt and said it has the resources to meet the rest of its maturities this year.

(Chart courtesy of tradeMONSTER)

Comments

[Kevin Walmsley:]

The volatility on GNW was starting to move a couple of weeks ago. On May 19, we grabbed the shares at $5.55, and wrote the June 5 calls for $1 each. Static and called returns of 9.9%, annualizes to 111%, with downside protection to $4.55.

Jun 01 07:20 PM