Large Trade in Hartford

After shooting higher over the past three days, Hartford Financial Services Group (NYSE: HIG) is taking a breather today, currently down less than 1.0% to $28.30. The company recently announced that the company may raise as much as $2.25 billion by selling a mix of common and preferred shares to repay the TRAP loans it took from the U.S. Government. The common was priced at $27.75 and the preferred was priced at $25. Given the amount of shares and the pricing, the stock is holding in extremely well, making purchasers of the secondary an immediate profit. I see this as a very good sign for the insurer.

Hartford is seeing some neutral to bearish call selling this morning, namely the June $28 call, which was sold on the bid roughly 15,000 times for $2.45, though this can hardly be construed as an outright bear bet as it is more than likely linked to the secondary offering. Someone is taking the chance to sell inflated calls against their newly issued shares.

UPDATE: this was apparantly part of a straddle sale in the name as minutes later the $28 put was also sold on the bid. This is apparnetly soemone shorting vol in the name.

Sorry for not flagging this sooner...