Marvell gets upside earnings play

Marvell Technology reports earnings tonight, and one investor is adjusting a position to stay long through the event.

optionMONSTER's Heat Seeker monitoring program detected the purchase of 3,100 March 17 calls for $0.37 and the sale of an equal number of February 15 calls for $0.97. Volume was below open interest in the 15s, which suggests an existing position was rolled forward in time and higher in price.

It was prudent to make the adjustment before today's quarterly report because 17s have a lower delta . That reduces the investor's exposure to a short-term drop. They collected a credit of $0.60, and remain exposed to upside for a month longer with the long calls in March. (See our Education section for more on managing risk with options.)

MRVL is up 1.01 percent to $15.93 in morning trading. The semiconductor company is up 21 percent in the last six months amid improving demand in the mobile and storage markets.

Total option volume is slightly above average in the name so far today, with overall calls outnumbering puts by more than 20 to 1.

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