Option Traders Active In Moderna After Authorization For Booster Shot

What Happened: Moderna Inc MRNA closed 5% higher Friday after it was announced the U.S. FDA had authorized its COVID-19 booster shot for adults 18 and older.

This is welcome news for bullish traders as the stock has been slumping after the earnings miss on Nov. 4 that had seen the stock drop from $345 down to $211 before bouncing.

SEE ALSO: Why Moderna Shares Are Trading Higher Today

While the stock is trading above-average volume Friday with over 13 million shares versus its 10-day average of 8 million, option traders have been quite active, trading over 313,000 contracts (image below).

Why It Matters: Prior to Friday, there were approximately 456,000 calls and 404,000 puts for a total of 860,000 options. Hence, today's 313,000 options represent 36% of the total options traded in one day.

Of those 313,000 options, 80% of them have been calls, which is significant and suggests option traders have a bullish bias on the stock.

About 34% of the 860,000 options are set to expire Friday (~292,000) options, thus a good portion of today's flows could be positions being closed or rolled as almost half of Friday's volume is short dated.

What's Next: The largest expiry by volume is for the Nov. 26 expiry with significant volume at the $270 and $300 strikes (image below).

Looking at this option chain, traders next week are betting a $270 touch is likely and have a moonshot target of $300 for the week, which would represent a 13% increase.

Beyond that, there isn't much interest past the $305 strike. Meanwhile, support may come in around the $260 and $250 strikes should the stock start to pullback.