$CSCO bulls triple money in a day

Option traders have scored large profits in Cisco Systems ahead of quarterly results in two weeks.

Just yesterday, Investitute’s tracking systems showed that 2,400 Weekly $46.50 calls expiring this Friday were purchased for $0.19 to $0.22 with shares at $45.89. Volume was well above the strike’s open interest of 2,119 contracts, indicating that this was fresh buying.

Those calls traded for as much as $0.61 today, 3 times their average purchase price. The stock rose 2.22% at the same time, illustrating the kind of leverage that can be achieved quickly with options. Investitute co-founder Pete Najarian cited unusual short-term call buying in the name on CNBC’s “Halftime Report” last week.

Long calls lock in the price where a stock can be purchased, gaining with a rally and providing leverage to the underlying shares. The contracts can quickly lose value if the stock stalls or pulls back but also carry less risk than owning the shares themselves.

CSCO was up 1.63% to $46.71 today. The networking giant, which is scheduled to report earnings on Feb. 13, has rallied with other large-cap technology names since early January