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Alcoa Inc (AA) traders are buying at-the-money March calls
Alcoa Inc (NYSE:AA) has been having a rough day on the charts, with the shares down about 3% to hit $12.89. Looking back, the shares have been slipping since notching a three-year high of $17.75 on Nov. 21, down 27.4% over this time frame. However, call activity in the stock's options pits has been ramping up, with speculators gambling on a reversal of the recent downtrend.
Drilling down, possible buy-to-open activity has been detected at the March 12.50 call. By purchasing this call, traders expect the security to extend its climb above the strike by Friday's close, when the option expires.
Today's penchant for calls echoes recent sentiment, as Alcoa Inc's (NYSE:AA) 50-day International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) call/put volume ratio of 2.15 stands higher than 82% of all equivalent readings taken over the past year. Reinforcing this statistic is the security's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.56, which arrives in the 28th annual percentile. Simply stated, traders are more call-skewed than usual towards the equity.