The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI - 13,281.55) is up 10 points, or 0.1%, boosted slightly by gains in the financial sector, along with lingering hopes that the European Central Bank (ECB) will help ease the euro-zone debt crisis by purchasing Spanish and Italian bonds. Elsewhere, the CBOE Market Volatility Index (VIX - 14.36) is 0.3 point, or 2.4%, higher.

Here are a few noteworthy stats at midday:

1. The equity put/call volume ratio across all 10 options exchanges stands at 0.70, with 3.8 million calls being traded so far today, versus 2.7 million puts.
   
   
2. Among the equities with heavy call activity is Omnicare, Inc. (NYSE:OCR - 31.96), which has tacked on about 0.5% today. Currently, calls make up 99.8% of the healthcare issue's intraday option volume.
   
   
3. The put/call volume ratio on the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (NYSEARCA:VXX - 11.09) -- which tagged a new all-time low of 11.02 earlier in the session -- stands at 0.54, with calls outpacing puts by a margin of nearly two to one.
   
   
4. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) shows an advance/decline ratio of 2.15, signaling that the number of upward movers more than doubles the decliners.
   
   
5. Among the NYSE's major advancers is Peabody Energy Corporation (NYSE:BTU - 24.13), which has added about 5.2% in intraday action after it was reported that the North American Metals & Minerals Industry is on pace to hit $35 billion in construction starts for 2012.