BAC, CHWY, SONY: Play Unusual Options Activity in These 3 Low-Cost Call Options Under $100

The options market bounced back on Thursday with a volume of 60.53 million, up 36% from Wednesday, but still below the 90-day average of 63.26 million.

Calls outnumbered puts 60/40, with single-leg options accounting for 54% of the volume. Approximately 44% of the volume was DTEs (days to expiration) of six days or more. That's where I focus my unusual options activity commentary.

In yesterday's unusual options activity, two options were expiring in six days or more, with volume of 500 or more and open interest over 100. Both were Strategy (MSTR) call options expiring a week from today, with Vol/OI (volume-to-open-interest) ratios above 100: Sept. 4 $141 call at 170.82 and Sept. 4 $146 at 139.53.

The last few days, I've gotten into the weeds a little with my options strategies. Today, I'm going to keep it simple by focusing on calls you can buy for less than $100 a contract.

The big banks have had a good 12 months in the market. Bank of America (BAC) is no exception, up 21.2% from a year ago, better than both JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and the S&P 500.

The Barchart Technical Opinion is a 72% Strong Buy right now. While that's down from 100% a month ago, it's still expected to move higher in the near term.

Analysts like it. Of the 25 covering it, 19 rate it a Buy (4.36 out of 5), with a $67 target price, above where it's currently trading. BAC is expected to earn $4.68 a share in 2026. Its shares trade at a reasonable 13.1 times that estimate.

As for the Sept. 25 $66 call above, the ask price of $0.15 at the end of yesterday's trading was just 0.25% of its closing price of $61.17. To break even, the share price has to increase by 8.14% over the next 29 days. The expected move in the next month is just 3.81%, which explains the 7.16% chance the share price will be above the $66.15 breakeven on Sept. 25.

However, with a 0.0830 delta, the share price only needs to increase by $1.81 (3.0%) in the next four weeks to double your money by selling the call before expiration.

I've said it before: Chewy (CHWY) is not a stock I'd own, primarily because it can't consistently deliver stable profits from its top-line revenue growth. As a result, its shares are down 45% in the past year, and it trades below its June 2019 IPO price of $22.