$PLTR bulls make quick profits

Option traders found quick profits on upside positions in Palantir (PLTR) today on positions opened early in the week.

On Aug. 9, Market Rebellion’s Unusual Activity programs detected the the purchase 10,000 Weekly $26 calls, expiring this Friday, for $0.12 to $0.21 with shares at $22.44. Open interest in the contract before the trade occurred was just 5,918, showing that this was a new position.

Those calls sold for as much as $0.43 today, over 2 times their purchase prices. The stock rose 14.48% in the same time period, a large move but nowhere near that of its options on a relative basis.

Long calls lock in the price where investors can buy a stock, letting them position for a rally at limited cost with the potential for significant leverage. They carry less risk than owning shares because the most that can be lost is the price of the options no matter how far the stock might fall.

PLTR was last up by 10.83% at $24.77 after trading as high as $25.76 earlier in the session. The big data analytics company topped earnings estimates in the pre-market.