Blackstone Draws Call Buyers

By Pete Najarian, co-founder of OptionMonster

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Blackstone(BX Quote), one of the world's largest private-equity firms, hit a 52-week high for the third straight session Wednesday along with heavy upside options trading.

CEO Stephen Schwarzman said Wednesday that his industry has gotten past the worst of the recession, comments that may have encouraged the call buying that lit up OptionMonster's screens in large numbers. The trading was concentrated at the December 17 contracts, at which nearly 15,000 calls changed hands.

OptionMonster's real-time systems showed most of the calls trading in a strong buying pattern, with the largest blocks going for $1.45 and $1.55. The volume was far beyond the open interest of 1,161 contracts at the strike, which has averaged just 55 calls a day for the last month.

Earlier this month, Blackstone announced plans to purchase U.S. theme parks from Anheuser-Busch InBev for $2.7 billion. The company made headlines again this week by saying it is evaluating the prospects for up to seven initial stock public offerings in addition to one already in the pipe.

Blackstone rose 7.6% to $17.60 Wednesday on heavy volume and moved up another 2.9% in after-hours trading. For the calls Wednesday to turn a profit, the stock would need to rise 4.8% to 5.4% from its closing price before the options expire in mid-December.

Total Blackstone calls traded at all strikes outnumbered puts by more than 4 to 1.