There was a lack of speculative capital or even hedging capital to play last week because people have been hurt so much. And looking back on last week, it was a start of a rebound from a floor level. Well, if they are buying the puts and they feel that the stock is going to move higher and it's a small part of their risk capital, that's fine. There are strategies out there that can reduce risk, but some of those strategies are never for-sure profit making ventures. You need the underlying stock to move your way, the volatility to move your way and the time decay to move your way.
Options trading is just another vehicle people can use when attempting to make money.
But sometimes they are overly aggressive in their attitude of how to make money. Trading options should be approached like any other type of investment. You have to premeditate the upward move and enter before the stock moves. Don't enter into an Ericsson just because the stock has moved 40 cents today and 50 cents yesterday. Impulses are usually mistakes.