Big win for Altera call buyers on talk of Intel deal

By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed

NEW YORK (Reuters) - News that chipmaker Intel Corp (INTC.O) is in talks to buy Altera Corp (ALTR.O) sparked a flurry of trades in its short-term calls and could spell huge gains for some timely buyers of the options.

Altera's shares jumped as much as 30 percent to a high of $45 on a Wall Street Journal report of talks toward a deal.

Trading in Altera's call options, that give the right to buy the shares at a fixed price at a future date, jumped on the news.

"Call buyers surfaced just as the story broke," said Fred Ruffy, options strategist at WhatsTrading.com.

About 3,000 Altera calls at the $36 strike price and set to expire on April 17 traded for 35 cents. These traded at 15:32 p.m. EDT (1932 GMT), just as Altera shares began to spike.

The calls last traded at $4, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Since each options contract represents 100 shares of the underlying stock, the trader would have paid about $105,000 for the 3000 calls. These were worth roughly $1.2 million by the close of trading, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Calls betting on the shares rising above $37 by April 17 also attracted activity at the same time with nearly 1,900 trading. These traded for 15 to 20 cents and closed at $8.

(Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; Editing by Chris Reese)