The dramatic moves in fuel cell related stocks continues this week, with shares in Plug Power (Ticker: PLUG), FuelCell Energy (Ticker: FCEL) and Ballard Power Systems (Ticker: BLDP) beginning the trading week with explosive gains ahead of FuelCell Energy’s first-quarter earnings report after the closing bell, and following on the heels of a large order from Walmart for Plug Power, which the company confirmed in a press release on February 26th.
Shares in PLUG rose as much as 38% to touch $11.41 this afternoon, marking a near 150% move to the upside in the price of the underlying since Monday morning of last week when the stock opened at $4.60. With a last-traded price of $10.50 on the shares, PLUG is up a cool 6,000% since this time last year.
Options volume on Plug Power is tipping the scales, with nearly 310,000 contracts having changed hands on the stock versus an average daily reading for the metric of approximately 35,000 contracts with less than 30 minutes remaining before the closing bell. Volume is concentrated in the March expiry options, and the 21 Mar ’14 $10 strike calls are the most traded contracts overall, with around 29,500 of the calls traded versus open interest of 5,733 positions. Trading in PLUG calls is outpacing that of puts as the trading sessions wraps up, with around 1.45 calls changing hands for each single put traded. Overall options volume traded on the stock today exceeds total open interest on the stock of 269,000 contracts.
