Are shares of JetBlue about to take off? That's what options traders appear to be betting on, as bullish options on the airline stock trade in huge volumes.
On Monday, two times the average daily options volume for the stock traded, and on Tuesday the volume reached three times average. The hottest option was the November 11-strike call, which traders were buying for about 63 cents. This amounts to a wager that JetBlue shares, which closed at $10.65 on Tuesday, will rise above $11.63 by November expiration in six weeks.
This time period includes both the release of third quarter earnings, and an analyst day on the week that the options expire. But interestingly, Mike Khouw of Dash Financial believes that these traders may be more interested in the period ahead of earnings than the post-earnings reaction.
"Over the last two years, in the month leading up to earnings, it's been up every single quarter—and the day after, it's been down," Khouw said Tuesday on CNBC's "Fast Money." "So maybe this is an options trader taking advantage of the fact that it's done a lot better heading into earnings than it has coming out of it."
