It's Time to Check Capex Again

$INTC$

An absolutely absurd rally. I thought recommending sell puts yesterday was aggressive — turns out it was still too conservative. Some large call buys have appeared, like $INTC 20260821 110.0 CALL$  and $INTC 20260618 130.0 CALL$ . That said, judging by the tape, some of those may have been closed by the end of the day.

Put strikes are roughly where expected — around 70. Selling puts at that level is fine, or just wait for a pullback.

For holders: not every potential pullback requires exiting a position. Some may try to sell high and buy back lower — but this year, that's a great way to get left behind.

$NVDA$

Same view as yesterday: range-bound at highs. Sell puts at 200.

$AMD$

Expecting a pullback to 300 or 280. Sell puts at 300 is reasonable.

$MSFT$

Microsoft and Oracle are getting dragged down as software names. Azure cloud will obviously be the driver. Other segments? Less certain. This earnings season, capex is unlikely to be a drag like it was in Q1. But if capex slows or flatlines, chips could pull back further.

A bullish call order: $MSFT 20260717 475.0 CALL$  — looks like a buy, and the strike is aggressively bullish. I'm skeptical of a huge post-earnings pop, though. If Microsoft exploded higher, there'd be no reason for GOOGL, META, or AMZN to trade lower.

Put flow expects a pullback to 400.

$GOOGL$

Strong positioning. A new high post-earnings wouldn't be surprising. Sell puts at 330 and call it a day.

$AMZN$

The run-up has priced in a lot of good news. Add Amazon's historically underwhelming prints, and put expectations are quite pessimistic — a pullback to 230 is in play.

Still, there's a short-term out-of-the-money call buy betting on a blowout: $AMZN 20260515 320.0 CALL$ . That's... aggressive.

Bottom line: selling puts on AMZN rarely loses. Even when it drops, it eventually recovers.

$META$

Year-end target for Meta still looks like 750. To balance AI capex and deliver decent numbers, Meta conducted major layoffs in Q1. Flip side: without them, the report would've looked rough. Don't expect a blowout.

Opinions on META are all over the place — 600 to 1,000. Not a great bet into earnings. Better to wait until after the print.