Bank of America Corporation (BAC) Traders Seek End-of-Week Gains

Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) has tacked on 1.3% this afternoon, and was last seen hovering around $16.42. Meanwhile, calls are crossing the tape at a 15% mark-up to the usual intraday rate, and nearly triple the pace of puts.

Diving deeper, BAC's weekly 2/27 16.50-strike call is seeing a ton of action, with roughly 36,500 contracts exchanged -- making it the equity's most popular option. Based on a number of factors, it's safe to assume some of these positions are being bought to open as speculators roll the dice on additional upside through week's end -- when the series expires. For this to happen, BAC will need to hurdle its 10-week moving average, which is seated right at $16.50, and has been pressuring the shares in recent weeks.

From a wider vantage point, today's call-bias is more of the same for BAC -- as well as sector peer JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM). Bank of America Corp's (NYSE:BAC) Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.53 indicates call open interest nearly doubles put open interest, among options with a shelf-life of three months or less. What's more, this SOIR rests just 2 percentage points from a 12-month low.