Protection Purchased on Pharmacyclics Inc. (PCYC)

Shares of Pharmacyclics Inc.

ended the session higher by 2.85%, trading at $6.85. The stock has been trading largely sideways for the past four months, struggling to hold onto the 50-day moving average. Options traders are buying some protection today, though, betting that the stock may slide lower from here. The August $5.00 put was purchased 2,000 times, on the offer, on open interest of 11,574 contracts. Total put volume is now running at 15x the daily average. Pharmacyclics Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing small-molecule drugs for the treatment of immune mediated disease and cancer. Its pharmaceutical drug development candidates are synthetic small-molecules designed to focus key biochemical pathways involved in human diseases.