Puts Purchased on Health Management Associates (HMA)

Shares of Health Management Associates HMA are higher on the session by 3.94%, currently trading at $10.82. The stock has been moving largely higher over the past six months and is currently trading above the 50-day and 200-day moving averages. Options traders are buying puts on the name today. A short while ago the May 2011 $12.00 put was purchased 1,000 times, on the offer, on open interest of 10 contracts. Overall put volume is now running at 4.79x the daily average with 74% of all puts traded being purchases on the offer. Health Management Associates, Inc along with its subsidiaries, operate general acute care hospitals in non-urban communities. As of December 31, 2009, the company operated 55 hospitals with a total of 8,418 beds in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and West Virginia.