Scanning today's market activity, one of the biggest gainers is email solutions specialist Mimecast Ltd (NASDAQ:MIME). The shares were last seen trading up 19.7% at $51.24, already tapping a record high of $51.66, as Wall Street reacts to the firm's quarterly report, which revealed better-than-expected results and an upbeat outlook. A ton of analysts have blitzed MIME stock with price-target hikes, too, with Northland Capital and Jefferies setting the highest ceiling at $55.
Mimecast is not a name that sees much, if any, options volume, but yesterday someone bought to open some positions at the February 45 call. It looks like most of the calls crossed for 90 cents, and today they're boasting an ask price of $6.40. As such, it would seem these options traders are sitting on massive paper profits, since there's been little option activity today.
MIME stock is now up 53% year-over-year, and the outperformance has earned it broad praise from Wall Street. That is, nine of 11 brokerage firms already had "buy" or "strong buy" recommendations on the security coming into today.
Another name that saw unusual call activity yesterday was Voya Financial Inc (NYSE:VOYA). Call volume actually hit an annual high on Monday, and the bulk of the activity occurred at the May 55 call, where buy-to-open activity was detected. Trade-Alert suggests one trader may have rolled up their position from the May 40 call. The May 55 call now holds open interest of 12,228 contracts, compared to the next closest, the soon-to-expire February 55 call, where just 3,249 contracts sit.
VOYA stock was last seen up 2.5% on the day at $49.23, which would be its highest close since the first half of October. The retirement investment shares could be digging out a foothold atop their 200-day moving average, as they try to enter back into the low $50 range where they spent most of 2018.