How the bulls are playing Cepheid

Cepheid has started to move, and one big investor thinks it will keep on going.

optionMONSTER's Heat Seeker monitoring program detected the purchase of 1,000 December 50 calls for $1.20 and the sale of an equal number of September 40 calls for $3.50. Volume was below open interest in the nearer-dated strike, which suggests that an existing long-call position was rolled forward and to a higher strike.

Making the adjustment resulted in a credit of $2.30 and provided the investor with an addition three months of upside exposure in the maker of genetic-testing equipment. It also protected him or her from a short-term pullback by lowering the delta . (See our Education section)

CPHD fell 0.62 percent to $43.40 on Friday but is up 15 percent in the last month. The stock gapped lower on a poor earnings report in July, double-bottomed near $37, and has been working higher since.

Total option volume in Cepheid was 11 times greater than average in the session, with calls outnumbering puts by a highly bullish 255-to-1 ratio.

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