There's not a great deal of down side to the stock right now, especially, at $73.30. Somebody bought in 2.5 million shares on Tuesday afternoon. Today, there was a (1500) contract purchase of OXY JAN13 $72.50 CALLS around $3.90. The volume is low, but it looks as if somebody's setting up for a move up in this stock by mid-January? (1500) contracts is approx. $485,000 worth. The delta is about .62 on those. If the stock move up a buck, that's a $93K gain for those folks.
If the market moves up again, OXY has custom of making some nice daily pops of $2/sh+.
Sentiment: Buy