Options Strategists Rig Up Bearish Plays On Transocean

Today’s tickers: RIG, S, EK & TDC RIG  - Transocean Ltd. –  Activity in near-term put options on the provider of offshore drilling services suggests some investors expect shares in Transocean to head further South in the next few weeks. RIG’s shares are currently down 2.00% to stand at $78.67 in early-afternoon trade. The stock is down 8.5% off its 11-month high of $85.98 set on March 3, 2011. Investors piled into put options in the front month, scooping up the contracts at deep out-of-the-money strike prices as low as the April $65 strike. Bearish players purchased around 1,400 of the April $80 strike put options at an average premium of $3.11 each. Put buying spread to the lower April $75 strike, the most heavily trafficked strike thus far in the session, to secure 2,800 puts for an average premium of $1.26 a-pop. More than 4,000 puts changed hands at the April $70 strike on paltry previously existing open interest of just 162 contracts. It looks like the majority of the contracts were purchased at an average premium of $0.41 each. Finally, two-way traffic drove volume at the April $65 strike price up to 2,860 contracts this afternoon. Overall options volume on RIG has topped 33,000 contracts as of 1:35pm on the final trading day of the week. S  - Sprint Nextel Corp. –  A massive stock and options combination play on Sprint Nextel Corp. today appears to be the work of an investor looking for shares in the communications company to shift higher ahead of May expiration. Shares in Sprint are continuing to improve today, up 2.2% at $4.66 as of 12:35pm in New York. The stock took a beating earlier this week after AT&T announced plans to merge with T-Mobile, but has since been on the mend. We observed…