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One trader is using options to hedge a trade in satellite-television stock DirecTV.

optionMONSTER's Depth Charge monitoring program detected the purchase of 1,250 December 49 puts for $0.97 and the sale of an equal number of December 42 puts for $0.09. Volume was below open interest in the 42s but not the 49s, indicating that an existing position was rolled higher from the lower strike.

The trader now has the right to sell DTV shares for $49, no matter how far they drop, rather than $42. They paid $0.88 for the additional $7 of protection, which will insure their stock through the next earnings report on Nov. 6. (See our Education section for more on how options can be used to guard against potentially volatile events such as quarterly results.)

DTV fell 0.10 percent to $51.27 on Friday, less than 10 percent below its previous all-time high in September. The stock is up 20 percent so far this year and has been trending steadily higher since early 2009.

Overall option volume was triple the daily average in the session, according to Depth Charge. Puts outnumbered calls by 4 to 1.

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