"With close to 200 million iPods in circulation worldwide, a solid first-mover advantage in the application distribution market, and many potential buyers still locked into carrier contracts or expecting availability at lower price points, we estimate that latent demand for the iPhone is extremely high," wrote analyst Vincent Rech in a note to clients.

Thanks to the positive attention, AAPL ticked higher out of the gate this morning. The stock has recently struggled against resistance at the round-number $140 level, as well as its formerly supportive 80-week moving average. The shares haven't finished a week above these troublesome technical levels since mid-September 2008.

However, speculative investors are betting that AAPL can continue its year-to-date gain of 65.1%. During the past 10 days, traders on the International Securities Exchange (ISE) have bought to open 1.87 calls for every put on the equity. This ratio ranks higher than 87% of other such readings taken during the past year, revealing a definite skew toward bullish bets.

Many call players have set their sights on out-of-the-money options, underscoring the high expectations among option traders. AAPL's June 145, 150, and 155 strikes carry combined call open interest of nearly 75,000 contracts. However, most speculators have zeroed in on that recently resistant 140 strike, which carries peak front-month call open interest of 52,819 contracts.

Unless the iPhone parent can make some major progress on the charts during the next several weeks, these heavy call accumulations could exert options-related resistance as the expiration of June-dated contracts draws closer.

Elizabeth Harrow is an analyst and financial writer in the research department at Schaeffer's Investment Research. She is featured in the video series Schaeffer's Daily Q&A on SchaeffersResearch.com.