Fortress Investment Group LLC FIG 0.13% shares are up 28.5 percent after SoftBank agreed to buy the company for $8.08/share. The news came just hours after Benzinga alerted its pro subscribers to two unusually large Fortress call purchases on the options market.
At 1:14 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Benzinga Pro sent out the following options alert on:
Fortress Investment Group Mar 6.0 Calls Sweep: 623 @ ASK $0.30: 958 traded vs 2334 OI: Earnings 2/23 Before Open (est) $6.10 Ref
Roughly an hour later at 2:25 p.m., Benzinga Pro alerted users to another unusual Fortress options trade:
Option Alert: Fortress Inv Group Mar 6.0 Calls Sweep: 577 @ ASK $0.447: 5249 traded vs 2334 OI: Earnings 2/23 Before Open (est) $6.30 Ref
News of the buyout broke at around 6:15 p.m., sending shares of Fortress soaring.
Stock traders often watch the options market for any unusual activity, such as the two big trades in Fortress ahead of the news.
Options traders are typically seen as more sophisticated and advanced than the average stock trader. That generalization is particularly considered to be true when it comes to options traders who place extremely large orders. In other words, when somebody makes a huge bet in the options market that a stock is going to go up or down, stock traders take it seriously.
The Benzinga team is constantly scouring…
Click here to continue reading
Want to learn more about how to profit off the stock market? Or maybe you just want to be able to look sophisticated in front of your coworkers when they ask you what you are reading on your Kindle, and you’d prefer to tell them “Oh, I’m just reading a book about stock market analysis,” rather than the usual “Oh, I’m just looking at pics of my ex-girlfriend on Facebook.” For these reasons and more, check out my book, Beating Wall Street with Common Sense. I don’t have a degree in finance; I have a degree in neuroscience. You don’t have to predict what stocks will do if you can predict what traders will do and be one step ahead of them. I made a 400% return in the stock market over five years using only basic principles of psychology and common sense. Beating Wall Street with Common Sense is now available on Amazon, and tradingcommonsense.com is always available on your local internet!
