PNC, a bank based in Philadelphia, announced earnings last Thursday 23rd April. So the day before I sold some 40 May straddles and bought August options as described in the volatility collapse post. Well, volatility did not collapse, in fact the skew is still there, with May option implied volatility at 95 and August at 79.
How to explain the mystery?
Look at the following table of bank stocks:
| Ticker | S | X | May C IV | Out month | Out Month C IV |
| KEY | 6.07 | 6 | 173 | Sep | 135 |
| RF | 4.7 | 5 | 176 | Aug | 145 |
| C | 2.9 | 3 | 116 | Sep | 92 |
| BAC | 8.12 | 8 | 135 | Aug | 115 |
| PNC | 40.45 | 40 | 95 | Aug | 79 |
| JPM | 32.75 | 32.5 | 75 | Sep | 68 |
| GS | 120.47 | 120 | 56 | July | 61 |
S is where the stock closed today, X is the strike that I am comparing the May call implied volatility to the out month implied volatility.
So we can see here that PNC isn’t the only one. It must be that there is a volatility skew for the banks for which options traders think will be affected by the results of the stress test. Next Monday, May 4th, we will see if this volatility skew goes away.
The Wall Street Journal leaked some preliminary results this morning.
Go to Yahoo! Finance and see the WSJ video discussing Citi and Bank of America.
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