Option Skews - Relatively Heavy Put Activity on Abercrombie & Fitch Co, Hartford Financial Services, Wynn Resorts Limited

Here are the stocks that saw a bias toward put activity in the previous session. This filtered scan is based on the International Securities Exchange (ISE) buy-to-open data. It looks for stocks where the previous day's put volume on the ISE is at least twice as great as the call volume. It then sorts the stocks based on the put volume. Since this is buy-to-open data, this can be a good source for finding stocks where skepticism is emerging. Of particular interest to me would be situations where we see put activity on stocks that are still in intermediate-term uptrends. This would be a potentially encouraging sign from the contrarian perspective.

Companies included in today's scan results: PowerShares QQQ Trust (QQQQ), Barrick Gold (ABX), Genworth Financial Inc (GNW), BB&T Corp. (BBT), Chesapeake Energy Corp (CHK), CONSOL Energy (CNX), Randgold Resources (GOLD), Norfolk Southern (NSC), Moody's Corp (MCO), Suntech Power Holdings Co Ltd (STP), Hershey Foods (HSY), Abercrombie & Fitch Co (ANF), Cerner Corp. (CERN), Boyd Gaming Corp (BYD), Salesforce.com Inc (CRM), Starwood Hotels & Resorts (HOT), Novellus Systems (NVLS), Franklin Resources (BEN), Hartford Financial Services (HIG), Wynn Resorts Limited (WYNN), Simon Property Group (SPG).

Regular readers might notice that today's table shows relatively light activity. The buy-to-open put volume on the ISE was on the smaller side and fewer stocks met my scan criteria. However, there are a few interesting situations. Abercrombie & Fitch Co, Hartford Financial Services, and Wynn Resorts Limited are the charts that stood out to me -

• The weekly chart of Abercrombie shows a steady uptrend in place for a year now.
• The weekly chart of Hartford Financial Services shows the stock is still holding below the resistance I have been watching.
• Last month we saw that Wynn Resorts was above support near 50 and hitting oversold levels. The daily chart shows the pattern of strong snapback rallies has continued. The stock is now sitting above short-term support near 60.

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