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QUALCOMM, Inc. (QCOM) continues its rebound
February has been a good month for QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), as the company settled with Chinese antitrust investigators, and the stock has filled its late January bear gap. What's more, since hitting an annual low of $62.26 on Feb. 2, the stock has rallied 14.3% to perch at $71.14. Accordingly, call buying activity in the stock's options pits has been ramping up.
Drilling down, calls are outpacing puts by a nearly 6-to-1 margin today, and are running at twice the average intraday rate. Garnering notable attention are QCOM's weekly 2/27 71.50- and 72-strike calls, where buy-to-open activity has been detected. By purchasing these calls, traders expect the security to finish north of the respective strikes by next week's end, when the weekly contracts expire.
Delta on the weekly 71.50-strike call stands at 0.42, implying a 42% chance of expiring in the money. Meanwhile, delta on the 72-strike call sits at 0.33, suggesting a one-in-three shot of an in-the-money finish.
From a broader perspective, put buying has picked up during the past two weeks. On the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), the equity's 10-day put/call volume ratio of 0.98 stands just 8 percentage points from an annual high.