Calls Purchased on Blackstone Group (BX)

Shares of The Blackstone Group LP BX are higher on the session by 4.89%, currently trading at $11.80. The stock has been moving largely lower over the past three months, but has caught a bid over the past four weeks. Options traders are buying calls on the name today, betting that the stock can rally further. The January 2012 $15.00 call was purchased 5,500 times, on the offer, on open interest of 14,063 contracts and the August $12.00 call was purchased 1,700 times on open interest of 4,486 contracts. Call volume is now running at 2.16x the daily average. The Blackstone Group L.P. is a manager of private capital and provider of financial advisory services. The Ccompany is an independent manager of private capital with assets under management of $98.2 billion, as of December 31, 2009.