Bulls Bank on Gains in JPMorgan

CNBC.com

JPMorgan Chase was active along with other banks on Friday as traders bet that there is still more upside in the name.

Buying hit our scanners early in the February 50 calls, with traders paying $0.08 and $0.09 for a quick 7,800 contracts. The activity would continue and volume would top 40,000 contracts by the end of the session, according to OptionMonster's tracking systems. Premiums also doubled to $0.17.

Those calls lock in the price where investors can buy shares. They can generate some nice leverage in the event of a rally, but also stand to become worthless if the stock doesn't move.

JPMorgan's shares rose 0.04 percent to $46.46 on Friday and are up almost 18 percent in the last two months. The bulls were piling into other financial names as well, including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs.

Calls outnumbered puts in JPM by 153,000 to 33,000, a big sign of the optimistic sentiment.

—By CNBC Contributor Pete Najarian

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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. Najarian owns JPM calls.

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