Juniper Rises While Cisco Stumbles
By: As Cisco Systems struggles, rival Juniper Networks is on the rise.
More than 71,000 options changed hands in Juniper overall, compared with its average of about 12,000 per session. Call buying dominated the activity, so the bulls apparently believe that there's still more upside ahead.
Yesterday most stocks, including Juniper, opened to the downside after Cisco's disappointing earnings report the night before. But the bulls stepped in and Juniper exploded higher, returning to levels not seen since the tech bubble collapsed a decade ago.
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The name was active on OptionMonster's monitoring systemsfor several days. The March 40 calls first caught our attention on Feb. 4 when they traded for $1.25. After yesterday's spike, they were worth $4.
Other contracts made even bigger moves: The February 42 calls started the session trading down around $0.30 but quickly screamed to $1.65. The February 44s also more than quadrupled in value from $0.14 to $0.68.
By the end of the day, Juniper's stock was up 7.61 percent to $43.40. It's been running north in a hurry, gaining 25 percent in the last three weeks.
Cisco, by contrast, took a beating. It plunged more than 14 percent to $18.92 after profit margins worsened and revenue from its mainstay switch business dropped 7 percent.
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Pete Najarian is a professional investor, CNBC contributor, regular co-host of CNBC's "Fast Money" and co-founder of OptionMonster.com.
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