JP Morgan was active along with other banks on Friday as traders bet that there is still more upside in the name.
Buying hit our scanners early in the February 50 calls, with traders paying $0.08 and $0.09 for a quick 7,800 contracts. The activity would continue and volume would top 40,000 contracts by the end of the session, according to optionMONSTER's Heat Seeker system. Premiums also doubled to $0.17.
Those long calls lock in the price where investors can buy shares. They can generate some nice leverage in the event of a rally but also stand to become worthless if the stock doesn't move. (See our Education section)
JPM rose 0.04 percent to $46.46 on Friday and is up almost 18 percent in the last two months. The bulls were piling into other financial names as well, including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs.
Calls outnumbered puts in JPM by 153,000 to 33,000, a big sign of the optimistic sentiment.
Disclosure: I own JPM calls.
(A version of this post appeared on InsideOptions Pro on Friday.)
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