On 2 Sep, NCM closed at $39.10 with Spot Gold price closing at US$1876.
NCM's performance compared to Spot Gold
NCM has underperformed by 20%. NCM's recent high was at $41.50 experienced on 21 July when gold price was at US$1601. On Friday, at $39.10, NCM has fallen about 6% whilst gold price has risen 14%, that's an underperformance of some 20% by NCM. NCM's share price has now settled into a very tight trading range, between $41.50 and $38.02.
Trading range
This small trading range in the stock is reflected in the drop off in the volume of options traded as well. Especially last week total calls and puts traded were almost half of the week before. Daily contracts were about 14,000 compared to the average of about 24,000 contracts per day in the last two weeks. This is reflected in its lower 30 day Implied Volatility as well, 26 versus historical's of 31.
NCM Options Actions
Despite gold price staying above the $1850 and had moved strongly, options market does not seem to expect NCM to move too much away from the range though. In fact, looking at last Friday's actions, calls and puts were quite equally traded. Some of the larger trades observed were bear call and bear put spreads. Selling of Sep $41 calls and selling of the $39 puts were observed.
