The most traded options on HPQ today are the Oct 18 ’13 $22 strike calls, with upwards of 36,000 contracts in play against open interest of around 15,300 contracts. Time and sales data indicates most of the calls were purchased at a premium of $0.44 each; the single-largest print being 27,564 calls that traded just after 10:15 a.m. ET. The calls may be profitable at expiration if shares in HPQ rally more than 5.0% over the current price of $21.29 to exceed the effective breakeven point at $22.44. Shares in Hewlett-Packard last closed above $22.44 back on August 29th.
Overall options volume on HPQ is approaching 69,000 contracts as of the time of this writing, which is more than twice the stock’s average daily volume of around 32,000 contracts. Heavy trading in calls on the stock finds the call/put ratio hovering above 7.5 in early afternoon trading.
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