U.S. stock futures are headed higher this morning, as earnings season rolls on. Wall Street is keeping a close eye on some big names reporting today, including McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD), Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) and General Motors Company (NYSE:GM). Meanwhile, the economic docket is relatively quiet until the end of the week, when the European Central Bank meets and U.S. third-quarter gross domestic product is released.

Heading into the open, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average are up 0.54%, S&P 500 futures have added 0.17% and Nasdaq-100 futures have gained 0.16%.

On the options front, volume remained well above average on Monday, with about 18.1 million calls and 14.8 million puts changing hands. On the CBOE, the single-session equity put/call volume ratio rose to 0.65, while the 10-day moving average ticked lower once again to hit a one-week low of 0.65.

Drilling down on Monday’s options activity, Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) were both targeted with heavy options volume heading into their respective quarterly earnings reports later this week. Meanwhile, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) surprisingly saw a rush on call options despite announcing a $1.6 billion bond deal.

Intel Corporation (INTC)

INTC stock options were considerably popular on Monday, with volume soaring to 228,000 contracts — about three times the stock’s daily average. Speculators were mostly bullish, with calls making up 56% of the day’s take. But the air in the weekly Oct 27 is considerably more optimistic.

Specifically, the Oct 27 put/call open interest ratio has fallen to a reading of 0.55 as Intel’s Thursday afternoon earnings report draws near. Overall, Oct 27 implieds are pricing in a potential post-earnings move of about 3.7% for INTC stock, placing the upper bound at $42.50 and the lower bound at $39.50. A rally to this upper range would put INTC in territory not seen since the dotcom bust of 2000.

As for earnings expectations, Intel is seen posting a profit of 80 cents per share, flat with last year’s results, on revenue of $15.73 billion, down slightly from a year-ago. EarningsWhispers.com puts the whisper number at 82 cents per share.

AT&T Inc. (T)

Struggling AT&T is also on the earnings docket this week. The company steps into the earnings limelight after the close this afternoon, with Wall Street anticipating a profit of 75 cents per share (up a penny from last year) on revenue of $40.12 billion — down nearly 2% year-over-year. EarningsWhispers.com puts the whisper number at 77 cents per share.

Ultimately, however, T stock’s reaction to the report will be more about how AT&T plans to deal with mounting subscriber losses. Recently, AT&T said it lost 390,000 high-end subscribers, and added about 300,000 lower-end DirecTV Now subscribers. That lost revenue is going to hurt, and guidance is going to be key for AT&T as it deals with this shift in its subscriber base due to cordcutting.

T options traders don’t appear to be too worried, however. Volume on Monday jumped to 204,000 contracts, with calls making up 64% of the day’s take. What’s more, the Oct 27 put/call OI ratio rests at a lowly reading of 0.42, with calls more than doubling puts among options most affected by AT&T’s report.

Implieds are pricing in a post-earnings move of about 2% for T stock, meaning the shares could fall as low as $34.50 or rise to about $36 immediately following this afternoon’s report.

Netflix, Inc. (NFLX)

Spend, spend, spend! That’s Netflix’s new business model, apparently, as the company gears up to drop roughly $8 billion next year on new original content and acquisitions. As part of this ramp up in spending, Netflix announced yesterday that it is planning to issue $1.6 billion in high-yield bonds — its biggest bond deal to date.

What are investors getting for that $8 billion? According to Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos, Netflix plans to release a whopping 80 films next year — a number that is startling when you realize that all six major film studios in Hollywood released 106 films last year.

While Netflix’s spending has been an issue in the past, investors appear to have grown accustomed to the new mantra. Options traders, in particular, showed a vote of confidence yesterday by loading up on NFLX calls. Volume topped 168,000 contracts, with calls making up 73% of the day’s take.

Overall, Netflix’s November put/call OI ratio of 1.14, however, shows that not all of the pessimism has been wrung out of NFLX stock.

As of this writing, Joseph Hargett did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.