Options Action on Bear Stearns, Pre-Collapse: Trade of the Century, If Legal

How’s this for a coincidence?

On March 11, four days before Bear Stearns (BSC) collapsed to single digits and with its stock still at $63 per share, some adventurous soul bought 5.7 million March 30 puts and 165,000 March 25 puts.

Total investment: $1.7 million.

Those strike prices, you’ll note, were less than half Bear’s stock price at the time, while the options themselves were set to expire in just nine days.

Nice timing! I’d love to know who the clever buyer was. I bet the S.E.C. would like to know, too. . . .

Comments

[rookie101:]

good article

2008 Aug 12 07:10 PM