someone with a lot of money to spend has taken a bullish stance on valero energy vlo 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 vlo 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 51 bullish and 48 bearish out of all of the special options we uncovered 6 are puts for a total amount of 451351 and 21 are calls for a total amount of 2275806 taking into account the volume and open interest on these contracts it appears that whales have been targeting a price range from 750 to 1500 for valero energy over the last 3 months in terms of liquidity and interest the mean open interest for valero energy options trades today is 165605 with a total volume of 1853400 in the following chart we are able to follow the development of volume and open interest of call and put options for valero energys big money trades within a strike price range of 750 to 1500 over the last 30 days valero energy option volume and open interest over last 30 days where is valero energy standing right now   with a volume of 2762862 the price of vlo is up 355 at 12735   rsi indicators hint that the underlying stock may be overbought   next earnings are expected to be released in 3 days what the experts say on valero energy   morgan stanley downgraded its action to overweight with a price target of 160   jp morgan has decided to maintain their overweight rating on valero energy which currently sits at a price target of 171   b of a securities has decided to maintain their buy rating on valero energy which currently sits at a price target of 160 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 valero energy benzinga pro gives you realtime options trades alerts