Tuesday Brainstorming - part 1

1. Unusual high activity of put buying throughout the day so far very much concentrated in short term options like 119 and 120 qqq SPX puts April and MAY QQQQ 48 puts on a quick review.

All Securities Time Calls Puts Total ISEE 12:10 235561 350730 586291 67 11:50 210364 332005 542369 63 11:30 193445 306394 499839 63 11:10 177359 295006 472365 60 10:50 159429 274616 434045 58 10:30 131659 206171 337830 64 10:10 93563 146083 239646 64 09:50 52911 97002 149913 55

All Equities Only Calls Puts Total ISEE 204251 127957 332208 160 179692 121953 301645 147 165094 99625 264719 166 151659 93589 245248 162 136177 83044 219221 164 113824 67522 181346 169 82125 44540 126665 184 46977 29828 76805 157

All Indices & ETFs Only Calls Puts Total ISEE 31270 222755 254025 14 30632 210034 240666 15 28321 206751 235072 14 25670 201399 227069 13 23223 191554 214777 12 17809 138631 156440 13 11412 101539 112951 11 5933 67172 73105 9

2. The new MacBook line introduced today comes with a hefty price increase of over 10% , might be a marketing strategy to hook more on the IPAD line. Since Apple works with steep margins that might be a mistake as they price themselves out of the sweet spot for a growing market share. Starting at 1800$ for a 15 inch notebook is too much even with improved tech features - now would have been the time to rather drop prices to push for a real market share against Microsoft. Especially considering that Obama will introduce a federal sales tax (VAT) at some point very likely after mid term elections rather making everything more expensive.