someone with a lot of money to spend has taken a bullish stance on merck  co mrk and retail traders should know we noticed this today when the big position showed up on publicly available options history that we track here at benzinga whether this is an institution or just a wealthy individual we dont know but when something this big happens with mrk it often means somebody knows something is about to happen so how do we know what this whale just did the overall sentiment of these bigmoney traders is split between 53 bullish and 46 bearish out of all of the special options we uncovered 8 are puts for a total amount of 275720 and 5 are calls for a total amount of 278804 taking into account the volume and open interest on these contracts it appears that whales have been targeting a price range from 800 to 1350 for merck  co over the last 3 months looking at the volume and open interest is an insightful way to conduct due diligence on a stock this data can help you track the liquidity and interest for merck  cos options for a given strike price below we can observe the evolution of the volume and open interest of calls and puts respectively for all of merck  cos whale activity within a strike price range from 800 to 1350 in the last 30 days merck  co option volume and open interest over last 30 days where is merck  co standing right now   with a volume of 3641767 the price of mrk is down 071 at 10478   rsi indicators hint that the underlying stock is currently neutral between overbought and oversold   next earnings are expected to be released in 29 days what the experts say on merck  co   credit suisse has decided to maintain their outperform rating on merck  co which currently sits at a price target of 126   atlantic equities has decided to maintain their overweight rating on merck  co which currently sits at a price target of 127   jefferies downgraded its action to buy with a price target of 125   mizuho downgraded its action to buy with a price target of 130   berenberg has decided to maintain their buy rating on merck  co which currently sits at a price target of 130 options are a riskier asset compared to just trading the stock but they have higher profit potential serious options traders manage this risk by educating themselves daily scaling in and out of trades following more than one indicator and following the markets closely if you want to stay updated on the latest options trades for merck  co benzinga pro gives you realtime options trades alerts