One of the most powerful edges in trading is watching what the “smart money” is doing—and in the options market, big traders leave footprints. Learning to read those footprints is a skill that can take years to develop, but once you understand the basics, you’ll start seeing the market in an entirely new way. Here’s how I track bullish option activity, and what it means for my trading decisions.
What Is Bullish Option Activity?
When a trader believes a stock is going higher, one of the most common ways they’ll express that view in the options market is by buying call options. A call option gives the buyer the right to purchase a stock at a set price (called the strike price) before a set date (the expiration). If the stock moves higher, those calls become increasingly valuable.
The keyword I look for is “buyer.” When I note a trade like “Buyer of 9,000 Energy ETF (XLE) March 55 Calls for $2.18 – Stock at 55,” that tells me someone is making a deliberate, bullish bet—they believe XLE is heading higher before March expiration, and they’re willing to put real money on the line to prove it.
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Size Matters
Not all call buying is created equal. A trade involving 10 contracts might just be a retail trader making a small speculative bet. But when I see a “Buyer of 87,000 Nvidia (NVDA) June 150 Calls for $38.60,” that represents approximately $335 million at risk. That is not a casual trade. Institutional traders, hedge funds, and sophisticated investors don’t put that kind of capital to work without serious conviction.
When I flag a trade as noteworthy, size and the amount of money spent are the first things I look at. Large-volume trades—especially those involving thousands of contracts—tell me that someone with significant resources is making a directional bet, and that’s worth paying attention to.
Persistence Across Sessions
A single large call buy can sometimes be a hedge or a one-off speculative trade. But when I see the same stock attracting bullish call buying across multiple sessions, that’s when I really start to take notice.
Take Petrobras (PBR) as an example. Over the course of roughly two weeks, I tracked call buying on February 20th, again on February 25th, and again in subsequent sessions — with traders targeting strike prices ranging from $15 all the way up to $22, even as the stock itself was rising from $14.50 to $17.25. The fact that call buying continued as the stock moved higher (rather than drying up) told me that this wasn’t one trader making an isolated bet. Multiple participants were all expressing the same bullish view. That kind of persistence is a meaningful signal.
Put Selling: Another Bullish Signal
Bullish option activity isn’t limited to call buying. When I see large traders selling puts, that’s another form of bullish expression. A put seller is essentially saying: “I’m willing to buy this stock at a lower price if it falls.” When I tracked multiple large put sales in Robinhood (HOOD)—including a seller of 4,500 July 70 puts with the stock at 85—it told me that sophisticated traders were setting a floor and expressing a willingness to own the stock at lower levels.
Tracking bullish option activity is about reading the market’s most informed participants. Big call buys, persistent multi-session activity, and large put sales all tell a story. They don’t guarantee a stock will go higher—nothing does—but they’re clues worth following.
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