Investors Buy High Volume of Put Options on Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSEARCA:XLF)

Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSEARCA:XLF) was the target of some unusual options trading activity on Thursday. Traders bought 236,018 put options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 26% compared to the average volume of 187,476 put options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Csenge Advisory Group boosted its stake in Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund by 43.2% in the 1st quarter. Csenge Advisory Group now owns 24,637 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock worth $1,038,000 after purchasing an additional 7,428 shares in the last quarter. Manchester Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund by 4.3% in the 1st quarter. Manchester Capital Management LLC now owns 6,100 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock worth $257,000 after purchasing an additional 250 shares in the last quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC boosted its stake in Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund by 8.4% in the 1st quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC now owns 143,845 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock worth $6,059,000 after purchasing an additional 11,207 shares in the last quarter. Gallacher Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund by 14.7% in the 1st quarter. Gallacher Capital Management LLC now owns 7,619 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock worth $321,000 after purchasing an additional 975 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Leuthold Group LLC boosted its stake in Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund by 115.8% in the 1st quarter. Leuthold Group LLC now owns 111,773 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock worth $4,708,000 after purchasing an additional 59,978 shares in the last quarter.

Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund Price Performance

NYSEARCA XLF traded down $0.60 during trading on Thursday, reaching $48.95. 26,366,074 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 40,785,727. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $45.90 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $43.36. Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund has a 12-month low of $33.46 and a 12-month high of $49.68. The firm has a market cap of $45.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.32 and a beta of 0.83.

Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund Company Profile

The Fund seeks to provide investors with a low-cost passive approach for investing in a portfolio of equity securities of firms as represented by the Financial Select Sector Index.