Option Movers | Rio Tinto's Volume Surges to 1.29 Million as Traders Are Selling Calls; Traders Are Selling Broadcom's $297.5 Put After Earnings Results

U.S. stocks closed down on Thursday (March 5) as the Middle East conflict entered its sixth day, pushing oil prices higher and spurring worries about inflation and whether the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates.

Regarding the options market, a total volume of 66,030,911 contracts was traded on Thursday, of which 55% were call options.

Top 10 Option Volumes

Top 10: $NVDA(NVDA)$, $TSLA(TSLA)$, $RIO(RIO)$, $AAPL(AAPL)$, $AMZN(AMZN)$, $SOFI(SOFI)$, $MSFT(MSFT)$, $AVGO(AVGO)$, $MSTR(MSTR)$, $PLTR(PLTR)$

Shares of $Rio Tinto(RIO)$ fell 3% on Thursday after China Mineral Resources Group urged traders to refrain from buying new BHP cargoes, Bloomberg News reported on the same day, citing two people familiar with the matter.

The state-backed buyer initially ordered steel producers to stop buying BHP's Jimblebar blend fines in September 2025, before restricting purchases of all new products, which are denominated in dollars.

There are 1.29 million RIO option contracts traded on Thursday, 179.6 times higher than the privious trdaing day. Options data reveals multiple large-scale sell orders for call options, with strike prices concentrated around $75 and $80. This indicates that institutional funds are taking advantage of the high volatility environment to collect substantial premiums by selling call options, expressing their expectation that the stock price will struggle to break through significantly in the short term.

Unusual Options Activity

$Broadcom(AVGO)$ reassured investors about its software business, sending its shares up 4.8% on Friday. CEO Hock Tan said that he expects infrastructure-software revenue for the current fiscal second quarter to grow 9% from the previous year to $7.2 billion, after growing just 1.4% in the first quarter to $6.8 billion.

Most notably, there was a massive sell-off of 15,136 put options expiring on March 13, 2026, with a strike price of $297.50. This is interpreted as institutions strongly believing that the stock price will not fall below this level, and by selling options to collect premiums or establish positions, they have built a strong "psychological support wall" at $297.50.

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