Large Block of Puts Purchased on Costco Wholesale (COST)

Shares of Costco Wholesale COST are lower on the session by 1.01%, currently trading at $71.69. 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 March 2011 $70.00 put was purchased 25,000 times, on the offer, on open interest of only 145 contracts. This signals new positioning on the name. Overall put volume is now running at 12.52x the daily average with 82% of all puts traded being purchases on the offer. Costco Wholesale Corporation operates membership warehouses that offer its members low prices on a limited selection of branded and selected private-label products in a range of merchandise categories.