Shares of Hologic Inc (NASDAQ:HOLX) are up 2.4% to trade at $71.51 at last glance, earlier tapping $73.09 their highest level since early January. Driving the upbeat price action is a Bloomberg report that Blackstone (BX) and TPG (TPG) are looking to buy the medtech giant for $17 billion.
HOLX is still stuck below its year-to-date breakeven level, but has now broken above recent overhead pressure at $70. Today's outperformance has the shares eyeing a fifth-straight win, a bounce that originated at their 100-day moving average.
Albeit amid light absolute volume, calls rule the roost over the last 10 weeks. At the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), traders have bought to open 5,111 calls in the past two weeks, compared to just 123 puts. The resultant 50-day put/call volume ratio ranks in the 100th percentile of its annual range, indicating the rate of call buying has never been higher in the last year. Echoing this, the equity's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.38 stands in the 11th percentile of annual readings.
Options traders are responding in kind to today's news. So far over 2,200 calls and 1,800 puts have been traded, six times the average intraday pace. Most popular is the November 75 call, followed by the the 72.50-strike put in the same standard series, where new positions are being bought to open.
