17 Unusually Active Call Options: Buy 3 for Under $300 and Big Potential Profits

The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ Composite indexes were up 1.05% and 1.64%, respectively, yesterday, setting new records. Investors continue to look past the Iran war to better times ahead, thanks to a strong start to Q1 earnings. 

CNBC reported that Utah-based WEBs Investments CEO Ben Fulton said this about the markets, “A week ago, I said, ‘The risk was on the upside.’ The market moves so much that now I look and go, ‘No, the risk is on the downside,’” adding, “It’s time to put it in the rearview mirror. They got to stay the course.”

WEBs Investments uses a defined-volatility strategy to adjust exposure to an underlying asset in a portfolio, such as a broad-based ETF, to reflect the current volatility by using total return swaps. 

Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the strategy's details, it’s food for thought if you’ve been sitting on more than your usual amount of cash waiting for a sign that the downside is past us. 

In yesterday’s options trading, the volume was 55.3 million, 4.3 million contracts less than the 90-day average. Unsurprisingly, the calls accounted for 60% of those contracts, with the top 100 stocks representing 80% of the volume.

 As far as unusual options activity is concerned, there were 95 call options with Vol/OI (volume-to-open-interest) ratios of 10 or higher. Of those, 17 had closing ask prices below $1.00. 

These three unusually active call options will cost you $300 or less with a risk/reward proposition you’re going to like.

The Unusually Active Calls for Consideration

As you can see from the 17 calls, it’s a diversified group, represented by eight of the 11 sectors in the S&P 500. Financial services and energy lead the way with four each of the 17, followed by financial services (3), utilities (2), and one each for industrials, healthcare, consumer discretionary, and consumer staples.  

I haven’t looked up the betas for each of these, but I’m sure that if you bought all 17 stocks, weighted more toward the large caps such as Uber and Berkshire Hathaway, you’d probably generate excellent long-term returns. Then again, Buffett’s already said most people should put 90% of their portfolio in a low-cost S&P 500 index fund and 10% in a short-term Treasury bond fund and call it a day. 

But for this article, I’ve selected the three best calls for your $300 investment, diversified by sector, that also consider the long-term potential of the stock’s risk-adjusted returns. 

Healthcare - UnitedHealth Group (UNH)

The three selections are ordered by Vol/OI ratios, which is why UnitedHealth Group is the first at 41.64. 

The largest private health insurer in the U.S., the company has not had an easy go of it in recent years. On Dec. 4, 2024, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, one of the company’s two operating segments, was killed by Ivy League graduate Luigi Mangione. On Jan. 30, a federal judge ruled that Mangione can’t face the death penalty for the murder of Brian Thompson.

Business is tough enough without having to go through that type of ordeal.

Barchart contributor Ebube Jones recently discussed UNH stock and the case for the turnaround, having gained traction. Analysts tend to like it, rating it a Moderate Buy (4.35 out of 5) with a target price of $362.62. 

This morning, UnitedHealth raised its EPS guidance for 2026 by 50 cents to $18.25 a share. The stock trades at 19.4 times that estimate. That’s reasonable for a company with such a large position in managed care. 

As for the May 8 $390 call, the ask price of $0.77 ($77) is just 0.22% of its $353.52 share price. Expiring in 15 days from today, you can double your money if UNH appreciates by $10.52 (3.0%) in the next two weeks and you sell to close the call before then. With an expected move of 4.1% and today’s upped guidance, it’s possible. It’s unlikely, though, for the share price to be above the $390 strike price on May 8. 

Energy - Halliburton Company (HAL)

Energy stocks are flying in 2026. The S&P 500’s energy stocks are up an average of 25.9% through April 22, almost double the materials sector (13.6%) in second spot. Halliburton Company is one of 22 energy stocks in the S&P 500. HAL stock is up 41% year-to-date, well above the average. 

I'm not a big energy guy, but when you’re one of the largest oil field services providers in the world and oil prices are through the roof, and production can’t keep up, it makes sense that the Barchart Technical Opinion in the near-term is a 100% Strong Buy. 

However, unlike a company like ExxonMobil (XOM), which can shift production to parts of the world unaffected by the war in the Middle East, Halliburton can only wait for the region to become safe. That’s one of the headwinds that’s kept Halliburton from hitting a home run. You can’t service what you can’t get to. 

CEO Jeff Miller said on Tuesday in the company’s Q1 2026 release, “In North America, I see clear signs that we are in the early innings of a recovery.”

Between this and a successful resolution in the Middle East, Halliburton should generate more free cash flow than it has in recent quarters.

As for the May 1 $42 call, the ask price of $0.30 ($30) is just 0.77% of its $39.11 share price. Expiring in 8 days from today, you can double your money if HAL appreciates by $1.79 (4.5%) in the next eight days. With an expected move of 5.05%, if the stock did this, your annualized return if you were to sell to close before expiration could be over 4,500% on your $30 bet. That’s pretty good, but don’t leave your day job. 

Utilities - Rogers Communications (RCI)

I’m Canadian. I couldn’t resist a little Canadian content. 

The largest of Canada’s wireless carriers, Rogers Communications, just reported a 72% jump in its Q1 2026 net profit, to CAD$482 million ($352 million) from CAD$280 million ($204 million) a year ago. Revenues were up 10% to CAD$5.48 billion ($4.0 billion).

Most of the increase on the top line was from its purchase of BCE's (BCE) 37.5% interest in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE), the holding company that owns several professional teams, including the Toronto Raptors and Maple Leafs. 

Rogers now owns 75% of MLSE and is expected to buy MLSE Chairman Larry Tannenbaum’s 25% interest in the second half of 2026. It will then own 100% of MLSE and the Toronto Blue Jays (which are held outside MLSE). 

I expect it will fold the Blue Jays into MLSE and then either sell a minority stake in the whole thing, or possibly take MLSE public, then spin off at least two of the Raptors, Leafs, and Blue Jays, with each unit public, keeping majority ownership of each team.

There are people paid far more than I am to make those decisions. Needless to say, the monetization of this massive sports business will be front-page news for the next 12-24 months. 

More importantly, it is where Rogers can extract the most additional value from its current assets. 

As for the May 15 $40 call, the ask price of $0.40 ($30) is 1.07% of its $37.48 share price. Expiring in 22 days, you can double your money if RCI appreciates by $1.76 (4.7%) before then. With an expected move of 6.32%, you’ve got a shot. 

As Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”