Today’s tickers: LTM, AA, JCP, LEG, INTC, ADS, FXI, GE, APOL & MDCO LTM – Life Time Fitness, Inc. – The fitness and health brand edged onto our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner after a large sale of puts was transacted in the March contract. Shares of the professional fitness company are currently down by over 5.5% to $9.42. It appears that one investor sold over 9,700 puts at the March 7.5 strike price for a premium of 25 cents each. Is this some optimism on behalf of an investor despite the decline in share price today? The chunk of puts observed represents nearly half of the existing open interest on the stock, and thus may indeed be tied to a short stock position. If it is not tied to stock but rather is naked put-selling, this investor faces real downside exposure should shares continue declining. AA – Alcoa Inc. – A large 10,000 lot put spread just traded in the April series of Alcoa whose shares are taking a 7% beating today at $5.85. An investor traded the 5.0 and 7.5 puts at a net 1.41 premium. Implied volatility on the options is running at around 104% given the slip through the existing 52-week low. JCP – J.C. Penney Company, Inc. – The major retailer popped onto our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner after more than 27,000 puts – representing about 20% of the total open interest on the stock – traded at the March 12.5 strike price. JCP is lower by 4% at $14.50 today. Open interest of only 6,129 contracts currently resides at the 12.5 strike confirming that today’s trading has fresh impetus. Within today’s total volume at the strike, over 14,000 puts sold for an average premium of 37 cents. This indicates that a trader is either selling puts in conjunction with shorting the stock or just outright confident that the shares won’t slip below $12.13 by expiration. If they do, this investor would be happy to own them. LEG – Leggett & Platt, Inc. – The manufacturer and producer of a variety of engineered products has declined slightly by 3% to $11.87 today, and appeared on our ‘hot by options volume’ market scanner after over 10,200 puts were shed by one investor at the March 10 strike price for a premium of 15 cents apiece. The lot of puts sold represents more than half of the open interest existing on…