US STOCKS-Call spread trading pops in Santander Consumer USA

By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed

NEW YORK, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Call spread trading has risen on Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc, the auto-finance unit of Spanish bank Santander SA, with options volume running about 37 times normal on Tuesday.

An unidentified investor sold 15,000 calls expiring in October at a $20 strike at 35 cents and bought 20,000 January calls at the same strike price for $1.10, Fred Ruffy, options strategist at Whatstrading.com, said.

Ruffy said the activity looks like a rolling forward of existing positions, as the investor in question extends a bet into the early part of next year. Open interest in the Oct. 20 strike calls is more than 15,000, most of that accumulating in August.

A total of 35,000 calls and no puts in all strikes traded as of 12:13 p.m. EDT, according to Trade Alert.

The January 2015 $20 strike calls, which traded 20,042 times, are the busiest on Santander Consumer USA (NYSE: SC - news) , according to Trade Alert data.

Shares (Frankfurt: DI6.F - news) of the company were down 14 cents or about 1 percent at $19.32 on Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

Index snapshot at 12:51 EDT:

* S&P 500 down 6.68 points, or 0.33 percent.

* Nasdaq Comp down 14.14 points, or 0.31 percent.

* Dow industrials down 69.52 points, or 0.41 percent.

* Russell 2000 down 8.48 points, or 0.72 percent.

* S&P MidCap down 6.26 points, or 0.43 percent.

* S&P SmallCap off 5.23 points, or 0.78 percent. (Editing by Nick Zieminski)