After days of plunging price action and persistent concerns about a looming government takeover, the shares of troubled siblings Fannie Mae (FNM: sentiment, chart, options) and Freddie Mac (FRE: sentiment, chart, options) are actually on the upswing this afternoon. Of course, not to paint too rosy a picture, both equities bounced after tapping new annual lows in early trading ($2.26 for Freddie; $3.53 for Fannie). At last check, FNM is up more than 9%, while FRE hovers around breakeven.

Were investors relieved by Ladenburg Thalmann analyst Richard Bove, who opined this morning that the "only rational action" to be taken on the duo "is to get rid of them?" Yeah, probably not. Instead, debt prices on both mortgage lenders are climbing, with many betting that the U.S. government will ensure the securities in the event of a bailout.

In any event, option activity is fast and furious on Fannie and Freddie. Yesterday on the International Securities Exchange (ISE), traders bought 23,007 calls and 30,133 puts to open on FNM, for a put/call ratio of 1.31. On the other hand, 12,640 calls and 6,170 puts were bought to open on FRE, for a put/call ratio of 0.49.

During the past 10 days on the ISE, FNM has a put/call ratio of 1.27, while FRE's is 0.95. In other words, traders are buying more puts on Fannie than they are Freddie. In the absence of a better explanation for this divergent option activity, I'm going to go ahead and cry "sexism" on this one. For shame, option traders. For shame.