Certainly looks like a few are loading up and using the options...

Certainly looks like a few are loading up and using the options to get a leveraged exposure to ALA.

That being said, the options are so close to the money that they are much less a signal of what might come - rather than what traders and speculators hope will come imo.

I was very bullish about ALA a month ago, but the risk/reward doesn't work for me at the moment. When I bought in, it was also based primarily on the options trading - however what I saw was:

2 million options bought up in one day. It was apparent by the order sizes/times that it was only a few buyers. The options were over 20c out of the money yet someone dropped $25 000 into them apparently without any news. That was as much trading on options as the entire 6 or so months prior combined.

Now the options are still a great leveraged play on ALA if you are of the view it will go up at least 20% or so in the next 5 months.

That being said, ALA is up 100% in a month already, so it will depend on the deal terms that are struck. Potentially the deal is not quite so fantastic and there is some dilution the share price might remain around this price. If you have heads, thats OK but option holders will then need to be looking for future prospects and optimism to see the value increase further and worst case see no value at all if the SP doesn't hit 25c by may this year.