Unusual Put Activity In S&P Homebuilders ( XHB )

It's probably part of a hedge, possibly even some 1987-style portfolio insurance (the more a position goes down the more you hedge until you descend into a self-sustaining vortex of doom).

From Slope of Hope:

My options scanner has picked up unusual put activity in XHB. Take a look below and you will see that there already is a sweet setup with a large put open interest compared to the call open interest. However, what really stands out is that there was 37061 near strike put activity for a near put open interest of 50479. That is a huge potential shift in the near put open interest.

If we go to Yahoo Finance and check the put option sheet to validate my scanner’s findings, sure enough we see the unusual put activity.

Best of all, checking Yahoo Finance this morning (after 7 AM), we see that most of the unusual put activity was due to put positions being opened.

The question remains, why would someone or some people open up fresh put positions after XHB has fallen from 31.00 to 29.61 (see the 6 month chart below)? The 6 month chart does look good for additional downside....MORE