Bullish GT Solar Option Trades Jump to One-Year High

GT Solar International Inc.’s bullish options volume jumped to the highest in a year as traders boosted bets that the supplier of equipment to solar manufacturers will extend today’s rally to a 22-month high.

Almost 2,300 calls to buy GT stock changed hands, nine times the four-week average and 28 times the number of puts to sell, as the shares rose 6.9 percent to $8.50 in New York. More than half of the trading was concentrated in the December $10 calls, which gained 30 percent to 65 cents. The shares haven’t closed above that level since October 2008.

GT has soared 43 percent since saying July 9 that it may get new orders from Chinese solar companies after the nation’s development bank agreed to increase lending. The stock is up 53 percent this year for the third-biggest gain in the Ardour Solar Energy Index, a gauge of 32 stocks that’s down 28 percent this year after losing as much as 43 percent.

“Just about every solar company has boosted production guidance this quarter,” said Joe Kunkle, founder of OptionsHawk.com, a Boston-based provider of options market data and analytics. “People are betting that solar stocks continue to rally, especially the China-focused names, as China has been making an aggressive push into solar power.”

JinkoSolar Holding Co., a maker of silicon wafers and solar cells based in China’s Jiangxi Province, said today that annual sales may be as high as $525 million, exceeding the $423.2 million average of five analyst estimates in a Bloomberg survey. First Solar Inc., the world’s biggest maker of solar power modules, said in June that new factories in Malaysia, France and Ohio will increase annual production capacity to 1,800 megawatts, up from the 1,100 megawatts produced in 2009.

GT, based in Merrimack, New Hampshire, won contracts in February to supply $200 million in equipment and services to Chinese manufacturers including Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., JA Solar Ltd. and a unit of Baoding Tianwei Group Co., as well as Taiwan-based Sino-American Silicon Products.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jeff Kearns in New York at jkearns3@bloomberg.net; Christopher Martin in New York at cmartin11@bloomberg.net.

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