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To: Broken_Clock who wrote (5850)	5/5/1999 11:34:00 PM
From: jgibbs	Respond to of 80904

Some heavy call buying, indeed. Are you doing any of the buying, Hutch? <<<Wednesday May 5, 8:10 pm Eastern Time US OPTIONS- Barrick Gold calls busy on gold rise CHICAGO, May 5 (Reuters) - Turnover surged in options on Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX.TO - news) (ABX - news) on Wednesday, piling up in the calls as gold and gold stocks recovered. ''There's a tremendous amount of volume,'' Lillian Seidman with Seidman Skupp Options Team at Miller, Tabak Hirsch & Co. said of the Barrick Gold options. Call volume in the option listed on the American Stock Exchange totaled roughly 18,280 against put volume of about 430 contracts. Turnover centered on the July 25 calls, where 6,589 contracts traded on open interest of 323, and the July 22.5 calls, with volume of 3,348 on Wednesday against open interest of 2,827. Open interest figures in the July 25 and 20 calls, where volume was 1,804 on 6,005 open interest, suggested rolling up by traders, analysts said. Barrick Gold shares on the New York Stock Exchange ended up 1-11/16 at 22-11/16 on Wednesday, pacing the sector upward. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange index of gold and silver stocks (.XAU - news) index rose 6.5 percent or 4.88 points to 79.63, and Comex June gold ended up $1.60 at $288.50. ''When people don't know which one (gold stock) to buy, they buy Barrick,'' an analyst said. Given the rise in Barrick's share price, implied volatility in the options stayed near the 51 percent area, ''a little more than average'' but inside its historical range of about 45-55 percent, the analyst added. In the XAU index, Seidman noted that it stalled out below the 80 level, which she figured could signal a market nearing a top. ''They're not coming after the 80 line,'' she added. "It does feel like that may be the top end of the trading range. In the XAU options, she pegged implied volatility at about 55 percent, on the high end of the historical range of 50-55 percent.>>>