Option Movers | Apple's $235 Put Options Draw Strong Interest; Palantir Sees Bullish Sentiment
Market Overview
U.S. stocks sold off on Friday, with the S&P 500 erasing its 2025 gains, after an upbeat jobs report stoked fresh inflation fears, reinforcing bets that the Federal Reserve will be cautious in cutting interest rates this year.
Wall Street's main indexes closed their second consecutive week in the red.
Regarding the options market, a total volume of 58,840,019 contracts was traded.
Top 10 Option Volumes
Top 10: $Nvidia(NVDA)$, $Tesla(TSLA)$, $Apple(AAPL)$, $AMD(AMD)$, $CBOE Volatility Index(VIX)$, $Meta(META)$, $MicroStrategy(MSTR)$, $Palantir(PLTR)$, $Amazon(AMZN)$, $Walgreens Boots Alliance(WBA)$
$NVIDIA(NVDA)$ stock shed 3% to close at 135.91, down 6% for the week.
The chipmaker's shares joined Friday's broad market sell-off triggered by December employment numbers that came in stronger than expected.
Nvidia stock also fell on concerns about the impact of new AI-related export curbs that could also impact rival $Advanced Micro Devices(AMD)$.
There are 4.16 million $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ option contracts traded on Monday. Call options account for 59% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $136 strike call option expiring Jan. 10, with 230,724 contracts trading.
$Apple(AAPL)$ is losing market share in China due to declining iPhone shipments, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote in a report last Friday. The stock slid 2.4%.
“Apple has adopted a cautious stance when discussing 2025 iPhone production plans with key suppliers,” Kuo, an analyst at TF Securities, wrote in the post. He added that despite the expected launch of the new iPhone SE 4, shipments are expected to decline 6% year over year for the first half of 2025.
Kuo expects Apple’s market share to continue to slide, as two of the coming iPhones are so thin that they likely will only support eSIM, which the Chinese market currently does not promote.
There are 1.39 million $Apple(AAPL)$ option contracts traded on Friday. Put options account for 49% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $235 strike put option expiring Jan 10, 2025, with 156,072 contracts trading.
Unusual Options Activity
There are 330,360 $Rigetti Computing(RGTI)$ option contracts traded on Friday. Call options account for 47% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $10 strike call option expiring Jan 10, 2025, with 20,364 contracts trading.
TOP Bullish & Bearish Single Stocks
This report shows stocks with the highest volume of bullish and bearish activity by option delta volume, which converts option volume to an equivalent stock volume (bought or sold).
If we take the total positive option delta volume and subtract the total negative option delta volume, we will get the net imbalance. If the net imbalance is positive, there is more bullish pressure. If the net is negative, there is more bearish pressure.
Based on option delta volume, traders bought a net equivalent of 847,636 shares of $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$ stock. The largest bullish delta came from buying calls. The largest delta volume came from the 10-Jan-25 Put, with traders getting long 216,508 deltas on the single option contract.
Top 10 bullish stocks: $Walgreens Boots Alliance(WBA)$, $Comcast(CMCSA)$, $Palantir(PLTR)$, $Edison(EIX)$, $Weibo(WB)$, $MicroStrategy(MSTR)$, $D-Wave Quantum(QBTS)$, $Quantum Computing(QUBT)$, $Carnival(CCL)$, $Delta Air Lines(DAL)$
Top 10 bearish stocks: $Nvidia(NVDA)$, $AMD(AMD)$, $Intel(INTC)$, $Mobileye Global(MBLY)$, $Energy Transfer(ET)$, $Faraday Future(FFIE)$, $Tesla(TSLA)$, $Alibaba(BABA)$, $Paramount Global(PARA)$, $BlackBerry(BB)$
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$(NVDA)$ $(TSLA)$ $(AAPL)$ $(AMD)$ $(VIX)$ $(META)$ $(MSTR)$ $(PLTR)$ $(AMZN)$ $(WBA)$Disclaimer: Investing carries risk. This is not financial advice. The above content should not be regarded as an offer, recommendation, or solicitation on acquiring or disposing of any financial products, any associated discussions, comments, or posts by author or other users should not be considered as such either. It is solely for general information purpose only, which does not consider your own investment objectives, financial situations or needs. TTM assumes no responsibility or warranty for the accuracy and completeness of the information, investors should do their own research and may seek professional advice before investing.
