3M Company (MMM) is an industrial product and technology services provider based out of St. Paul Minnesota. At the time of this post (12:10PM CST), MMM is currently trading at 166.97, up 0.25% on the day. The stock is currently just off its 52 week highs of 168.16 which printed near the end of December 2014. MMM pulled back sharply after printing these highs on the year, but has managed to hold over the 160.00 support level on a daily chart and push back towards a re-test of these levels in recent sessions. The stock remains up significantly overall over the past 52 weeks, as it has been in a fairly strong uptrend since the lows were put in around this time last year.
Earlier this morning, OptionHacker detected and flagged a notable trade in MMM that would imply a trader is expecting little further directional movement in the stock heading into the April monthly options expiration, despite the overall bullish trend remaining intact for the time being. Between 9:10-9:20AM CST, a large trader came in and put on approximately 2,500 of the April ’15 160-165-170 iron butterflies, a neutral to slightly bearish trade that is structured to profit the most if MMM is trading at 165 (the middle strike in this strategic trade setup) by the April options expiration which is 70 days away. So while the technical picture in MMM continues to remain highly bullish, in this particular instance the unusual options activity may be telling a different story, at least for this particular trader looking for minimal movement in the stock over the next few months.
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