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Call buying has been popular on Priceline Group Inc in recent months
Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) has tacked on 3.6% this afternoon to trade at $1,150.49. In the equity's options pits, meanwhile, calls are trading at a slight mark-up to the average intraday pace, with a number of speculators rolling the dice on an extended run higher through week's end.
Specifically, the stock's weekly 12/26 1,150-strike call is the most active PCLN option today, and it appears a number of these contracts are being bought to open. Amid today's rally, delta on the call has jumped to 0.45 from 0.078 at Friday's close, indicating an increased probability the option will be in the money at this Friday's close, when the weekly series expires.
From a wider sentiment standpoint, option bulls have been targeting PCLN for some time now. At the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), for example, the equity's 50-day call/put volume ratio of 1.17 ranks just 3 percentage points from an annual bullish peak.
On the charts, PCLN has put in an uninspiring performance in 2014, with the shares sitting 1% below where they started the year. Longer term, though, Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) has grown nearly tenfold since April 2009, thanks to a lift atop its 80-week moving average -- and this rising trendline helped to contain a number of the stock's recent pullbacks.