The bulls hope for more good news from Fortinet, which gapped higher after a strong earnings report earlier this year.

OptionMonster's tracking programs detected the purchase of 8,758 May 23 calls for $1.50 and the sale of an equal number of May 26 calls for $0.475. Volume was more than triple the previous open interest at each strike, indicating that new positions were initiated.

Owning calls locks in the level where investors can buy shares, while selling them fixes a potential exit price. Yesterday's traders will buy the network-security stock for $23 and sell it for $26 if it rallies to the higher price. It cost them $1.025 to open that $3 spread, a profit of 193 percent on a move to $26.

First the good news: General Motors' March sales rose 6.4 percent, ahead of the industry's 3.4 percent gain. GM had its best March in five years. Its first-quarter market share rose to 18 percent from 17.5 percent in the first quarter a year earlier. Cadillac sales rose 50 percent. Buick sales rose 37 percent. And GM China sales hit a first-quarter record of 816,373.

The future looks good because GM will begin selling its new K2XX Silverado and Sierra pickup trucks toward the end of the current quarter, just as the pickup truck market seems to be gaining steam as both an indicator and beneficiary of the resurgence in housing construction.

Hertz Global shot to a long-term high earlier this week along with other car-rental stocks, but yesterday the options paper was bearish.

OptionMonster's tracking programs detected the purchase of about 3,000 April 23 puts against previous open interest of just 289 contracts. The early blocks priced for $0.65 to $0.70, and then inflated to as much as $1.15 as the shares pushed lower.

Puts lock in the price where investors can sell stock, which can provide big leverage in a pullback. They're used by shareholders looking to hedge against a drop, or by traders hoping to profit from a drop.

Occidental Petroleum bounced yesterday, and the big-oil bulls jumped on board.

OptionMonster's monitoring systems detected unusual activity in the May 80 calls, with large purchases occurring for $3.15. Volume continued to build throughout the session and ended yesterday at 10,899 contracts, more than twice the previous open interest in the strike, indicating that these are new positions.

Calls lock in the price where investors can buy shares in the Los Angeles energy giant, providing significant leverage in the event of a rally. That's exactly what happened yesterday because OXY inched higher after the options hit and those calls appreciated by more than 10 percent to $3.50.

Finding a good growth story and trying to make a case for why it belongs in a value investor's portfolio has always been difficult.

There's the excitement of growth, but more often than not, that growth comes at an expensive premium, and there are no guarantees the company will ever grow into that valuation.

Heading into first-quarter earnings season, efficiency is the name of the game for big U.S. banks.

Most large banks are continuing to see their net interest income pressured in the prolonged low-rate environment. With the short-term federal funds rate staying in a range of zero to 0.25 percent since late 2008, most of the big players have already realized the benefits on the cost side. Meanwhile, higher-rate residential mortgage loans continue to be refinanced and commercial loans continue to reprice at lower rates. The FDIC reported the aggregate net interest margin for U.S. banks narrowed to 3.32 percent in the fourth quarter from 3.43 percent in the third quarter and 3.57 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011.

It doesn't appear that Apple can do anything about its tailspin, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Tuesday, likening the company to beleaguered JC Penney.

On "Squawk on the Street," Cramer said he sees potential for Apple's next product to go down in history as an epic disappointment, on par with Apple's failed "Lisa" computer in the 1980s.

"Whatever product that is coming out in September is a clear loser. We haven't seen it yet, but it is a loser," Cramer said

Pipelines have been the dominant group in the last few sessions, and yesterday the bulls came back to Oneok.

OptionMonster's tracking programs detected the purchase of about 15,000 October 52.50 calls for $1. The transaction dominated activity in a name that sees volume of fewer than 1,200 contracts in an average session.

Shares of fast-food giant Wendy's are still struggling to find solid footing ever since Morgan Stanley analyst, John Glass, lowered his rating on the stock to "underweight" from "equal-weight" on March 1.

While setting a $5 price target, Glass suggested that the company's restructuring efforts may take longer than investors expect. However, it would seem the company's actually on schedule. And if fourth-quarter earnings serve as indication, Wendy's plan to be "A Cut Above" should produce gains above what the Street expects.

The city of Detroit may be a financial mess, but its automakers — Ford and General Motors — are in the best shape they've been in years, according to analysts. And U.S. March auto sales, due out on Tuesday, by many estimates should be strong.

The stocks, however, are a different story.

"You have very strong underlying demand fundamentals," Sterne Agee auto analyst Michael Ward told CNBC.