"Stock God" Leopold was margin-called and forced to transfer his holdings — Citadel Securities swooped in and picked them up at a bargain price. The very next day, the market rebounded sharply with a massive surge. There's something worth reminding everyone about: Citadel Securities acquired Morgan Stanley's options market-making business in 2025 and is likely the largest options market maker in the market today. As we all know, options liquidity is provided by market makers, so Leopold's large block buy orders were essentially visible chips in the eyes of the market makers. This reminds me of the old saying — "the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind." The large block trades I've been tracking might just be fat lambs waiting to be sheared in the eyes of the market makers

Pullbacks suck. One day everything's grinding higher on AI euphoria, the next you're watching the major indexes drop 5-10% while your portfolio takes a beating. I've lived through enough of these—2022, the 2025 wobbles, and now this latest bout of volatility—to know that sitting there frozen isn't a plan. Options can be a powerful tool here, but only if you use them with discipline. They're not lottery tickets. First, Get Your Mindset Right A pullback isn't automatically a crash. Markets can correct on profit-taking, Fed jitters, or rotation out of overvalued names while the economy stays decent. Your goal isn't to call the exact bottom. It's to protect what you have, reduce risk, or position for the bounce without blowing up your account. Practical Options Strategies for Pullbacks 1. Prot

I. Spending + Debt Issuance + Cash Flow Risks For this earnings report, Amazon faces the risk of upward revisions to capital expenditures or operating cash flow falling short of expectations. Competition for retail market share remains intense, which could further pressure retail margins. Amazon commands a significant share of the credit market, coupled with persistent oversupply from ongoing bond issuance — its credit performance is expected to lag behind the sector. Amazon is projected to add another $25–35 billion in debt by the end of 2026. Even the bond market is pricing in risks from Amazon's debt issuance and spending — this originates from the same valuation-killing dynamic seen with META and GOOGL. The make-or-break factor on the equity side is whether AWS growth can justify these

I. Core Perspective: Apple's Key Factor Is Not Capex, but Expectation Realization Unlike MSFT / META / GOOGL, Apple is not a story of heavy AI spending and compressed free cash flow — it is a cash cow by nature. Therefore, for this earnings report, the specific numbers are not the most critical factor. The key question is: Apple has already risen 16.88% this month — have the good news already been priced into the stock? The current price sits at approximately 32x FY27 P/E, approaching valuation peaks. That is the true variable that will determine post-earnings price direction. June quarter iPhone likely beat slightly, but September quarter gross margin guidance may be on the low side, with gross margins expected around 46.8% (consensus 47.4%). Services growth faces headwinds, with the App

The July FOMC confirmed no rate hike — that's good. The U.S. stock market really can't handle any more turbulence right now. It may seem "reasonable" that only South Korea and Japan are plummeting, but in reality, it's not reasonable at all. The 100,000-contract IGV weekly call position $IGV 20260731 88.0 CALL$ was closed before Tuesday's close. Although IGV continued to rise today, for weekly options with less than five days to expiration, the trading discipline is exactly that — open on the day, close on the same day or the next. The noteworthy point is that I initially thought this trade was betting on upside from MSFT and META earnings, and that after closing it would at least roll into a new position. But the block trad

I. Fundamentals: Revenue and EPS Expected to Beat Consensus Q2 results are expected to beat consensus on both revenue and EPS, with additional upside to EPS driven by the cost-cutting effect of a 10% headcount reduction in May and a 49% month-over-month decline in job postings during Q2. AI integration + external compute sales are emerging as new growth drivers. Based on rumors that Meta may reach a compute leasing agreement with Anthropic, the market has priced in an additional $5 billion in AI compute revenue expectations by 2027. The bull case is well-rounded (stable advertising + AI monetization + cost reduction + reasonable valuation). However, like Microsoft and Google, Meta is one of the heaviest capex spenders among tech giants — with both AI infrastructure and Reality Labs burning

I. Fundamentals: AI Execution Remains the Core Debate Microsoft reports Q4 FY26 results after the close on July 29. Market focus centers on three points: Azure growth following new capacity rollouts, the pressure of capital expenditures on margins and free cash flow, and M365 Copilot adoption rates along with broader AI monetization capability. Azure year-over-year growth is the key metric to monitor, with company guidance at 39–40%. FY26 Q4 capital expenditures (including leases) are expected to reach $42 billion, up 32% quarter-over-quarter and 74% year-over-year, compressing free cash flow from $25.5 billion last quarter to $14.4 billion. M365 Copilot added 5 million paid seats in FY26 Q3, bringing the total to 20 million, with AI annual recurring revenue (ARR) exceeding $37 billion, up

This week's price action in U.S. equities is critical for the market trend over the next several weeks — above all the FOMC decision due early Thursday Beijing time. The U.S. indices have arrived at a very important support level, and once a key variable pushes them into choosing a direction, the broader medium-term trend could change. The current calm may therefore be brewing sharp volatility in the back half of the week. First, the latest developments on the technical side As you can see, the Nasdaq has now reached a very critical level. On the head-and-shoulders top pattern, the formation can already be treated as a breakdown of the head structure; by conventional technical projection, the subsequent downside would theoretically be roughly equal to the distance from the head to the curr

SK Hynix (SKHY) has seen extreme volatility since its listing, with IV surging to 130% — a classic setup where fundamentals are solid but short-term panic prevails, often creating opportunities for deep OTM option sellers. This post walks you through the fundamental logic, market sentiment, and the complete trade setup behind a Sell Put. Part 1: Why Won't It Fall Much? HSBC's report laid out the current situation in the Korean stock market clearly: the market is indeed facing the risk of a "Minsky moment" due to high leverage — the leverage factors that drove stock prices higher over the past few months are now reversing, and the daily rebalancing of single-stock leveraged ETFs amplifies selling pressure during downturns. HSBC estimates that if stock prices fall another 10%, just SK Hynix

The highlight of earnings season is here: TSMC reports on Thursday (July 16). This post takes you from fundamentals, volatility calculations, and large order signals all the way to strategy positioning for three scenarios — a complete guide on how to trade earnings without stepping on landmines. Part 1: Fundamentals — What Is the Market Watching? TSMC is a company that reports monthly results, so revenue and profit are public information that has largely been priced into the stock price well in advance. Market expectations for this report are very high: full-year revenue guidance is expected to be raised to 40%, gross margin above 67%, 2026 capex raised to $56 billion, with total capex over 2026–2028 expected to reach $206 billion. The two most closely watched metrics are gross margin and

Earnings season is here, and many traders want to use options to catch big moves. But earnings options are exactly where most people get burned: they get the direction right, yet still lose money. Today we'll cover two key things: how to properly estimate earnings-related volatility, and how to understand IV Crush — "the buyer's enemy and the seller's friend." Part 1: Volatility Is Not a Gut Feeling How much a stock will move after earnings isn't something you need to guess — the market has already priced in the expected range. The calculation is straightforward, using the ATM Straddle: Straddle Price ≈ At-the-Money Call Premium + At-the-Money Put Premium Market's Expected Move ≈ Straddle Price ÷ Current Stock Price This is your baseline: only when the actual price move exceeds this number

$SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ Following the bullish 800 calls, SPY is now seeing a new wave of aggressive long positions — large blocks of deep OTM call options:$SPY 20271217 1095.0 CALL$  $SPY 20271217 1100.0 CALL$  $SPY 20271217 1110.0 CALL$  $SPY 20271217 1120.0 CALL$ . Total premium flow: under $8 million. These December 2027 expiries (1095, 1100, 1110, 1120 strikes) each saw 10,000 contracts opened on Wednesday, direction buys. These calls have deltas below 0.1 — e

$Direxion Daily Semiconductors Bull 3x Shares(SOXL)$ The large put order $SOXL 20260612 170.0 PUT$  closed faster than expected — marking the end of this round of selling. The bears had hoped to push this down to the 10-day or even 20-day moving average. But dip buyers showed up in force, far outnumbering the panicked sellers. Expect more one-day pullbacks like this in the future — but not necessarily more follow-through. $Sony(SONY)$ Sony's base case: 25. Bull case: 30. On Monday, a 60k contract order hit the July 25 call $SONY 20260717 25.0 CALL$ . Another 9k were add