Traders Buy High Volume of Call Options on iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (NYSEARCA:EWZ)

iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (NYSEARCA:EWZ) saw some unusual options trading activity on Friday. Stock investors bought 266,519 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 81% compared to the typical daily volume of 147,143 call options.

iShares MSCI Brazil ETF Stock Performance

EWZ opened at $34.67 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $10.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.58 and a beta of 0.61. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $36.79 and its 200-day simple moving average is $36.27. iShares MSCI Brazil ETF has a twelve month low of $26.30 and a twelve month high of $42.02.

Institutional Trading of iShares MSCI Brazil ETF

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Royal Bank of Canada raised its stake in shares of iShares MSCI Brazil ETF by 18.0% in the first quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 344,041 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $8,894,000 after acquiring an additional 52,532 shares during the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC grew its position in iShares MSCI Brazil ETF by 819.7% during the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 1,683 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock worth $44,000 after acquiring an additional 1,500 shares during the last quarter. CW Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in iShares MSCI Brazil ETF during the 2nd quarter valued at $243,000. Cresset Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in iShares MSCI Brazil ETF by 12.8% during the 2nd quarter. Cresset Asset Management LLC now owns 22,430 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $647,000 after purchasing an additional 2,541 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Karpus Management Inc. raised its position in iShares MSCI Brazil ETF by 21.0% in the 2nd quarter. Karpus Management Inc. now owns 165,578 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $4,777,000 after purchasing an additional 28,681 shares during the last quarter. 72.69% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About iShares MSCI Brazil ETF

iShares MSCI Brazil Capped Index Fund (the Fund), formerly iShares MSCI Brazil Index Fund, seeks to provide investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of publicly traded securities in the Brazilian market, as measured by the MSCI Brazil Index (the Index). The Index seeks to measure the performance of the Brazilian equity market. It is a capitalization-weighted index that aims to capture 85% of the (publicly available) total market capitalization.