Ford Options Attract Bullish Traders

OptionMonster co-founder Pete Najarian provides options picks Monday, Wednesday and Friday in TheStreet.com's Deep in the Money Calls newsletter.

David Russell, reporter for OptionMonster.

Options action was bullish on Ford Motor(F) today as investors bet that the automaker would rally at least 6% in the next four weeks.

OptionMonster's tracking systems detected heavy buying of the August 8 calls, which traded for 15 cents to 39 cents. About 43,000 of those contracts have traded so far today, almost four times existing open interest at that strike.

Ford is up 6.2% to $7.85 this afternoon and is up 33% in the last month. The stock needs to climb to $8.36 for the calls purchased today to turn a profit. The next apparent catalyst that could drive the shares higher is the release of July sales figures on Monday.

Ford has more than quadrupled since the market bottomed in March and gapped above $6.50 on July 23. Today it's working its way through a gap lower that occurred on May 22, 2008. Its next likely resistance level will probably be in the $8.50 to $8.80 range, its old high last year.

The September 7 calls were also under accumulation, trading 11,267 times for 80 cents to $1.24, although volume was far below open interest of 56,394 contracts.

Call activity in the name exceeded puts by roughly 4 to 1, reflecting the bullish sentiment.

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