Very Elevated Options Trading in Zynga Ahead of Earnings (ZNGA)

April 26, 2012 by Jon C. Ogg

Source: Zynga
Zynga, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA) is seeing some serious options trading activity ahead of its first full earnings report as a public company.  The stock has traded over 12 million shares with just over two hours of trading until the market closes, but options trading is limited to May for the most part in the social gaming giant.

All of the action is in the May 2012 Calls and Puts with more than 10,000 traded in each series:

  • The $9 Calls saw more than 12,000 contracts trade, more than its entire open interest before today.
  • The $11 Calls also saw more than 12,000 contracts trade, and that is also more than its entire open interest before today.
  • The $8 Puts in May saw more than 11,300 contracts trade today, which is nearing 3-times Zynga’s entire open interest before today.

As a reminder, trading volume of 10,000 options contracts actually translates to 1 million shares of common stock if you take it at face value on a fully leveraged basis of 1 contract per 100 shares of common stock.

Zynga shares are trading up almost 3% at $9.38 ahead of the report and the post-IPO range is $7.97 to $15.91.  Yahoo! Finance lists its market capitalization rate as $6.77 billion for the company’s equity value.

Thomson Reuters has estimates of $0.05 EPS on $317.25 million in revenue.  Next quarter estimates are $0.06 EPS and $339.55 million in revenue.  Keep in mind that Zynga is trading as a busted IPO as of now.

JON C. OGG

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