bullish, page-5

re: bhp:options,time to short??rem,gse et al A nice trade on BHP bull spread Astoria. I would take profit today as you have done.

BHP gone berserk since they buy back announcement on Tuesday. There were many traders got caught short and base on the open interest for BHP ETO options as of this morning, there are 13222 open calls contract which are in the money. These open contracts, some would have to be covered by buying stocks on the market. If they all get exercise then you are looking atleast 13,222,000 BHP shares to be converted.

We had biggest ever volume day for BHP on Tuesday with 55M shares, 38M on Wednesday and 29M today. Most of these are investors buying back after selling their shares to BHP in the buyback scheme and I am sure a lot are short covering. We'll see tomorrow and Monday if these holding from options exercise will be unwind, which means BHP might falls. But if they have not cover their positions than, there is a good chance they will have buy them again tomorrow. Of course, we will also get those traders with exercised holding might not want to hold on to it and dump them. So, any thing go and stay tune for BHP AGM in London this afternoon.

Good luck