Tesla closed at USD 308.85, rising 3.53%.
A clash of mammoth options trades surfaced in TSLA, headlined by a $22.18 million bear put spread and a $21.65 million bull put spread. While the bullish structure appears to balance the tape, a deeper look at aggregate flow and additional bearish positioning reveals a cautious, defensively negative tilt among large traders rather than outright conviction.
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Options Indicators
TSLA’s implied volatility is 50.64%, and with an IV percentile of 38.65%, current option pricing sits in a neutral historical range rather than an unusually cheap or expensive one. At the same time, the IV/HV ratio of 0.73 suggests implied volatility is running below realized volatility, indicating the market is not assigning an aggressive premium to near-term option prices despite TSLA’s naturally active trading profile. The Call/Put volume ratio is 1.57.
Large Trades
A bearish bear put spread worth $22.18 million was the largest highlighted trade, built by buying 1,580 July 31, 2026 $400.00 puts and selling 1,300 July 31, 2026 $370.00 puts. This structure is a downside directional strategy that seeks to profit from a decline in TSLA while reducing upfront cost versus an outright long put. Using the preprocessed leg amounts, the long-put purchase cost $14.32 million and the short-put sale brought in $7.86 million, resulting in a net premium paid of $6.46 million, or a net debit. With TSLA referenced at $308.85, both strikes are in the money, which suggests the trader was positioning through deep intrinsic-value puts for a defined-risk bearish stance rather than pure volatility speculation.
A bullish bull put spread worth $21.65 million was the second major displayed trade, created by selling 1,680 July 31, 2026 $400.00 puts and buying 1,450 July 31, 2026 $350.00 puts. This is typically an income-oriented bullish strategy that aims to collect premium while expressing a view that TSLA can remain above the spread’s risk zone over time, with the long lower-strike put serving as downside protection. Based on the provided amounts, the short $400.00 puts generated $15.46 million and the long $350.00 puts cost $6.19 million, leaving a net premium received of $9.26 million, or a net credit. Since TSLA is currently at $308.85, both strikes are also in the money, indicating the trade was placed in a deeply intrinsic area of the put curve and reflects a defined-risk bullish exposure with meaningful premium intake.
Overall, the large-trade flow leans slightly bearish. Although one of the two dominant trades was a sizable bullish bull put spread, the full large-trade summary shows bearish activity outweighing bullish activity, and that edge is reinforced by the presence of additional bearish structures elsewhere in the tape. The combination of a major bear put spread, other downside-oriented positioning, and only a modest imbalance rather than an overwhelming one suggests sentiment is cautious and defensively negative on TSLA rather than aggressively bearish.
Strategy Reference
For traders seeking a neutral-to-bullish approach with low assignment risk, selling an out-of-the-money put spread, such as a September 2025 $250.00/$240.00 put spread, could allow for premium collection while keeping the short strike well below current price levels and the recent high-volume action zones.
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