More often than not they've been a pretty good indicator. I remember when Z9 $30 puts were trading huge when crude was north of $100. The purpose of this thread was more for an extra layer of mrkt color and depth.
Q NG goes off board tomorrow. Alot of index and phys ng moving thru today - not many options. CL: Z 100 C traded 2,000x paper to paper; Z 50 P traded 3,500 so far, paper bought, still bid last I heard. Vol getting slightly bid since this morning. Topic of the day is CFTC.
This has some good links. http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/07/28/64201/evil-commodities-speculators-in-the-dock/ That CFTC man Gary Gensler has a fascinating haircut... a mullet I think, right? Lobster mullet? See the vid in the link... Interesting about oil: Shitty sulfury Oman crude (a "medium sour crude") is trading at a premium to Brent, a light (less sulfur) crude, itself at now a $2.70 premium to Nymex WTI crude -- this is weird. Apparently Chinese and Indian demand -- where the Oman crude goes -- is driving up Oman. This bears witness to outperformance of Asian economies to US, W Europe. Chinese just lowered gas prices -- which may fuel demand further. But the craaaaazy credit bubble being blown there may have even more to do with it, methinks. Small note -- did you know that California uses more gasoline than any country in the world (except of course the US as a whole)? So Cali guzzles more mogas than China, or all of Germany, or Russia... Wow.
Not huge size trades, but back month strikes seem active this morning: Z11 100 c traded 6.20, 500x, ppr to ppr. Z13 100/140 call sprd traded 5.45, not sure what size, ppr sold. Vol continues to be offered.