Puts Purchased on Ashland Inc. (ASH)

Shares of Ashland Inc. ASH are higher on the session by 0.35%, currently trading at $60.67. The stock has been moving largely higher over the past four 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 June 2011 $60.00 put was purchased 1,000 times, on the offer, on open interest of only 536 contracts. This signals new positioning on the name. Overall put volume is now running at 2.79x the daily average with 91% of all puts traded being purchases on the offer. Ashland Inc. business consists of five segments: Ashland Aqualon Functional Ingredients; Ashland Hercules Water Technologies; Ashland Performance Materials; Ashland Consumer Markets, and Ashland Distribution.