The weekly options tomorrow (4/26/13) will give us a peek at how much control the Options Market Maker has....
There are 5,000+ options with strikes $82.50 and higher which will expire worthless if the stock closes below $82.50. There are essentially zero puts open corresponding to these stikes.
So, the 5,000+ options represent over 500,000 shares that no one will need to deliver IF IOC's share price is 'controlled' into the close tomorrow. In addition, there are another 1,250+(corrected at 5:10pm) options at the $80 strike that can be "zeroed out" if the price is pushed below $80/share. We know the stock price is manipulated on a repeated basis. Let's see how tomorrow demonstrates who is in control of the stock price?!?!?
PS: all option open interests that I am using are before today's activity is factored in. So, some of my number may be off - either low or high ! Activity today was about 1,800 options in the $82.50 and above strikes. The $80 strike saw 346 options trade today.