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General Electric (GE) was the center of some brisk options trading on Friday, as more than 313,400 contracts crossed the tape. This surge in volume was nearly three times the stock's average daily trading volume of 114,235 contracts, according to data from WhatsTrading.com. In addition, roughly 85% of the volume changed hands on the call side.
Overall, options players have been very optimistic when it comes to GE. The International Securities Exchange (ISE) has reported more than eight calls purchased to open for every one put purchased to open during the past 10 trading sessions. This ratio of calls to puts is higher than 99% of all those taken during the past year, pointing to a growing optimism.
In fact, the Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio comes in at 0.87, which is lower than 95% of all those taken during the past year. In other words, short-term options players have been more optimistically aligned toward the shares only 5% of the time during the past 12 months.
Short sellers are also unloading their bearish bets. During the past two weeks, the number of GE shares sold short dropped by 14% to nearly 64 million. This accumulation of bearish bets accounts for less than 1% of the company's total float, offering up little sideline money to push the stock higher.
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