Chesapeake Draws Long-Term Bearish Options Bet

Natural gas producer Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) is up nearly 2% today and despite that fact options traders are taking a long-term bearish approach to the name as more than 6,000 January 2012 12.50 puts have changed hands today against open interest of just 376 contracts.

This trade could be a way of shorting the shares without doing so directly given that the stock would need to fall by nearly 50% for the puts to go in-the-money.