Trader bets on 70 percent rally by July.July $85 call options onAdvanced Micro Devices (AMD) saw a 30-fold surge in volume, going from 100 open contracts to about 3,000. The trade, expiring in 170 days, indicates a 70 percent move higher for shares, based on their current price near $50. The buyer of these options also paid about $0.60, or $60 per contract, so the trader may just be betting on the company before it reported earnings after the market close on January 28th. Shares of the chipmaker have had a monster year with a 144 percent gain already. The company is starting to see th...

Trader bets on jump in shares in the next month.February 21st call options with an $87 strike onAbbVie (ABBV) saw a 30-fold rise in volume, going from 104 open contracts to over 3,100. The trade, expiring in 24 days, is a bet on shares rising about 3 percent from their price near $84.50. Adding in the $1.65 the option buyer paid on average, the trade will profit the buyer if shares rally closer to 5 percent. AbbVie has recently shed some of the drugs in its portfolio ahead of its $63 billion merger with Allergan, creating a pharmaceutical powerhouse.Action to take: We like shares of A...

Trader bets on decline through March.March 2020 $23 put options onJuniper Networks (JNPR) saw a 50-fold surge in volume, going from 123 open contracts to over 5,900 trade hands. The trade, expiring in 53 days, is a bet that shares of the company will fall at least $1.50 from their current price. For the trader to profit at expiration, shares would need to close in on $22.65, to make up for the cost of $0.45 per contract. Shares of the communication equipment manufacturer and provider have declined 13 percent in the past year.Action to take: Shares trade at 13 times forward earnings, b...

Trader bets on 80 percent rally in shares this year.January 2021 calls with a $270 strike price onSpotify Technology (SPOT) saw a five-fold increase in volume, going from 157 open contracts to over 825. The bet, expiring in 358 days, would call for an 80 percent rally in shares from the current price around $148. The trader paid about $1.05, or $105 per contract, so any rally in Spotify shares this year would likely lead to outsized returns on this trade. Shares of the music streaming company are up 13 percent in the past year, hardly making it the kind of fast-growth play likely to c...

Trader bets space tourism company’s shares will go to the moon this year.January 2021 calls with a $25 strike onVirginGalactic Holdings (SPEC)saw a 12-fold rise in volume, going from 295 contracts to over 10,300. The bet, expiring in 358 days, is that shares will hit at least $28.25, adjusting for the $3.25 that the option buyer paid in premiums. The $25 strike price is currently about 35 percent higher than where shares currently trade near $18.50. For the buyer to profit at expiration, shares need to rally another 53 percent from here. Virgin Galactic Holdings is the publicly-traded...

Trader bets on current rally to continue.The May 2020 $70 call options onLas Vegas Sands (LVS) saw a 12-fold rise in volume, going from 812 open contracts to over 10,200. The bet, expiring in 114 days, is that shares will continue higher. And with LVS shares at $71 right now, the trade is already $1 in-the-money. The buyer paid about $4.65, or $465 per contract, so shares would need to be close to $75 to profit at expiration. Shares of the casino company are up nearly 30 percent in the past year, but slid over 4 percent on news of a new virus in China, which may weigh on casino touris...

Traders bet on drop this week.$50.50 put options expiring on Friday, January 24th, onAdvanced Micro Devices (AMD) saw a 43-fold rise in volume, going from 102 open contracts to over 4,350 trade hands. The bet is that shares will fall about 1 percent from their price near $50.95 in the next four trading days. The option buyer paid $0.73 on average per contract, so shares would need to decline under $49.75 for the buyer to profit at expiration. Shares of Advanced Micro Devices have had a stellar year with a 151 percent gain. That gain shows little sign of a slowdown after the company re...

Traders bet on rally to continue.The February 14th $28 call options onNike (NKE) saw a 14-fold rise in volume, going from 104 open contracts to nearly 1,500. With 25 days to go until expiration, the buyer of these options is betting on a 3.5 percent move higher in shares from the current price around $104.30. The option buyer also paid $0.45 to get into the trade, so the trade won’t profit at expiration unless shares hit at least $108.45 or higher. Shares of the company are already at all-time highs, and trading around 36 times earnings following a 30 percent rally in the past year.Ac...

Traders bet on relief rally after earnings miss.Shares ofWells Fargo (WFC) took a hit after reporting earnings earlier this week, and at least one trader is betting that some of that recent loss will be unwound in the coming days. That’s based on the 20-fold rise in volume on the February 7th, 2020 $49 calls on the company. With 21 days until expiration, and shares right around $49, these options are at-the-money, and could start moving higher dollar-for-dollar with a recovery in shares.Action to take: We like the company’s prospects as a rebound play. As we looked at in further detail e...

Traders bet on recovery from yesterday’s drop.Yesterday, shares of retailerTarget (TGT) slid about 7 percent as the company announced poor holiday sales. But at least one trader sees the drop as temporary. That trader started to buy the January 31st $120 calls, expiring in just 15 days, creating a seven-fold rise in volume on the options. Paying about $1.05 per contract, that trader will need to see shares recover to just over $121 from around $117, or move higher by about 3.4 percent, to profit. Even after yesterday’s drop, shares of the retailer are still up about 83 percent in the ...