A $5 million bullish bet on General Electric took the options market by storm on Wednesday. The wager comes following an announcement earlier this week that United Airlines will purchase 200 jets from Boeing, a major boost for GE’s aviation division.
The stock has been volatile in recent months, down 4% since the beginning of June but still up 2% since early May. However, bullish bets decidedly outpaced their bearish counterparts in Wednesday’s session.
“[GE] traded about two times the average daily volume, but calls outpaced puts by [a ratio of] about 4.5-to-1. One particular trade really stood out: 50,000 contracts of the January 2022 $14 calls were purchased for about $1 earlier [Wednesday],” OptionsPlay chief strategist Tony Zhang said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Fast Money.”
“So this particular trader laid out $5 million in premium to bet that GE will be above $15 by January 2022, which is about 11% higher than where it’s currently trading today.”
The options market is currently implying about a 26% chance that GE will be above $15 by January 2022 expiration, or slightly better than 1-in-4 odds that this bet will pay off.
GE was trading about 0.5% higher in Thursday’s session.
