Options Recap: A Bet Against Natural Gas

OptionMonster co-founder Pete Najarian provides options picks Monday, Wednesday and Friday in TheStreet.com's Deep in the Money Calls newsletter.

David Russell, reporter for OptionMonster.

Below is a compilation of stories that ran Monday on OptionMonster.com, which uses advanced monitoring systems to detect trading patterns by large institutional traders and retail investors.

Large trade bets against natural gas: While most of the pundits are calling for a rally in natural gas to meet the bullish moves in oil, one large trader is positioning for further declines in the United States Natural Gas (UNG Quote) exchange-traded fund.

Watch for swings during Apple(AAPL Quote) confab: The unique emotional factor behind Apple can be seen in how the stock trades around high-profile public events such as the World Wide Developer Conference.

Bears look for downside in MBIA(MBI Quote): The financial insurance firm has dropped some 14% in the last week, and traders are positioning for it to fall further in the next two months.

Bearish trade in Alnylam Pharmaceuticals(ALNY Quote): Someone is making a high-risk bet against the drug company after it released results for a lung-infection treatment undergoing Phase II trials.

What have we learned from LTCM?: In all of the recent talk of derivatives and their role in our current problems, there are a number of important lessons to be learned in looking back at Long Term Capital Management.

Monday Premarket:

Large trades in American Express(AXP Quote): Options volume was very low Friday, but American Express received some big trades as investors extended hedges on the credit-card firm.

Tracking unusual moves in Treasuries: Charts illustrate the flow of money between stocks and bonds.

Trades turn bearish on Biogen Idec(BIIB Quote): Activist investor Carl Icahn has finally managed to place at least one director on the board of Biogen Idec, and now options action is turning negative on the drugmaker.