On Monday with Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) at the top of the business news thanks to negotiations for takeover offers set to begin between the company and billionaire investor?Carl Icahn?and the Blackstone Group, the options market jumped in on the action as well.?
Options traders placed bets that the company could receive a greater than $15 a share bid. Options trading volume on the stock rose almost two times the daily average by the middle of the afternoon.?
Earlier in the trading day, Dell options had two big trades that involved selling calls.?Brian Stutland of Stutland Volatility Group said to CNBC, these actions meant that traders “don’t think the bids by Icahn and Blackstone will push the stock any higher than where it is trading now.”
Should the options market have the correct price, Stutland added, “$15 is the top end of where this merry-go-round stops.”
According to The Wall Street Journal’s Kaitlyn Kiernan, the?most active options had the company’s stock moving between $14.66 to $15.09 in the next two months.
Frederic Ruffy, a WhatsTrading.com analyst said to Kiernan,??With an original offer of $13.65, it seems like $15 would be a stretch, but that is what people in the options seem to expect.??
For Dell, the stock closed up 2.62% to $14.51 on Monday.