Traders are betting on a big 2015 for Coca-Cola.
On Monday and Wednesday, traders made large purchases of the Coca-Cola 50-strike calls expiring in January 2016. Since a call represents the right to buy a stock for a given price at a given time, the buyers of these calls need Coca-Cola shares to rise above $50 by January 2016 in order for the options to pay off. That would represent a nearly 20 percent rally from current levels.
Shares of the beverage giant did not have a particularly good 2014. Coca-Cola stock rose only 4 percent over the course of the year, badly underperforming both the S&P 500 (which rose about 12 percent) and competitors like PepsiCo and Dr Pepper Snapple (which rose 14 percent and 47 percent, respectively).
Both Monday and Wednesday saw purchases of about 10,000 of the January 2016 50-strike calls for roughly 70 cents per share. If all 20,000 calls were bought by the same firm, which options expert Mike Khouw says is highly likely, that would represent a $1.4 million bet on a strong 2015 for Coca-Cola.
That said, whether this is actually an outright bullish bet, rather than an upside hedge, remains unclear.
As Khouw also points out, given that Coca-Cola is experiencing slow growth even as it enjoys a price-earnings ratio significantly above that of the S&P 500 overall, "it is always possible that these calls are being purchased against a short. There are plenty of reasons to be betting against this company."
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Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct strike price of the options.
