Quote Originally Posted by sonatine View Post
ok i just read this:

"if a trader buys a call because he/she thinks premium is cheap, he/she would then hedge off some of the directional risk by selling stock short against the calls."

and lo and behold the premium on that june 900 option was $20, and now its $34 or something.

so there's a piece of the puzzle falling into place.
Being long, you can win two ways. You can profit off your scalp from the underlying hedges, and you can sell your premium if it goes up more than the loss in dirextional underlying.