How one bull is playing Marathon Oil

Marathon Oil has been going straight up, and one investor is sticking with the name.

optionMONSTER's Heat Seeker monitoring system detected the purchase of 7,500 February 34 calls for $0.57 and the sale of 5,000 February 33 calls for $1.16. Volume was below open interest at the lower strike, indicating that an existing position was closed and rolled higher.

The investor collected a credit of $152,000, which may have been his or her original investment. The trader then increased the number of contracts owned, which will result in even greater leverage if the energy stock continues to rally. (See our Education section for more on how options can be used to manage trades.)

MRO is down 0.36 percent to $33.65 this morning but up 10 percent in the last month. The company is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results on Feb. 6.

Calls outnumber puts by a bullish 57-to-1 so far today, according to the Heat Seeker. Total option volume is almost 5 times greater than average.

The trading follows other bullish option activity in MRO on Tuesday .



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