Options Brief: Health Management Associates (HMA

Shares of Health Management Associates HMA are lower on the session by 4.41%, trading at $9.11. Overall put volume is now running at 4.20x the daily average, with 59% of all puts traded being purchases on the offer. 1,105 contracts have traded on the session so far. Health Management Associates, Inc., along with its subsidiaries, operates 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.