Wall Street's main indexes ended lower on Friday (July 7th) in a seesaw session, as investors digested a U.S. jobs report that showed weaker-than-expected growth and awaited more economic data and corporate earnings in the weeks ahead.
Regarding the options market, a total volume of 38,880,043 contracts was traded, up 3.5% from the previous trading day.
Top 10 Option Volumes
Top 10: SPY; QQQ; Tesla; Rivian; Nvidia; Apple; IWM; Alibaba; Amazon; Meta Platforms
Shares of Rivian Automotive surged 14.2% to $24.7 after the electric vehicle maker reported better-than-expected quarterly deliveries. Wedbush Securities set a higher price target on Rivian Automobiles on Friday based on its view that the story is turning around for the electric vehicle maker.
The firm maintained its Outperform rating on Rivian, while raising the price target to $30 from $25. The higher PT is said to reflect further confidence in Rivian hitting or exceeding its delivery targets heading into the second half of 2023 and 2024, with an inflection year ahead.
A total number of 1.5 million options related to Rivian was traded, of which call options accounted for 69%. A particularly high trading volume was seen for the $25 strike call options expiring July 14, with a total number of 47,428 option contracts trading on Friday. $RIVN 20230714 25.0 CALL$
U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba gained 8%, the biggest gain in more than three months, after Chinese authorities said they will impose a $984 million fine on Ant Group, ending the affiliate fintech company's years-long regulatory overhaul.
Investors are betting the fines draw a line under the multi-year crackdown that torpedoed Ant’s planned IPO in 2020. It paves the way for Ant to revive growth and eventually resurrect plans for an IPO.
“The decision addresses market concerns about fintech and the overall Internet sector,” Jefferies analysts including Thomas Chong said in a note. They said it “removes overhang” on Alibaba’s shares.
A total number of 803.9K options related to Alibaba was traded, of which call options accounted for 80%. A particularly high trading volume was seen for the $95 strike call options expiring July 14, with a total number of 440,421 option contracts trading on Friday. $BABA 20230714 95.0 CALL$
Most Active Equity Options
Special %Calls >70%: Lucid; Nio; Alibaba; Alphabet; Amazon; Meta
Unusual Options Activity
Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital climbed 14.3% and 2.3%, respectively, even after posting unimpressive bitcoin (BTC-USD) production numbers for June. Coinbase Globalalso gained as a number of well-known asset managers refiled their spot bitcoin (BTC-USD) ETF applications to include the company as a surveillance partner.
Online used car retailer Carvana stock jumped more than 21% on Friday, with year-to-date gains surpassing 500%.
Last month, the company said it expects adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter above $50M, after previously just saying it would be positive. Shares are up more than 75% since that announcement. However, the company is not profitable and is heavily indebted. The used car market is also not in great shape with higher interest rates.
A total number of 318,424K options related to Carvana was traded, of which call options accounted for 57%. A particularly high trading volume was seen for the $35 strike call options expiring July 14, with a total number of 9,642 option contracts trading on Friday. $CVNA 20230714 35.0 CALL$
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.
Top 10 bullish stocks: RIVN; MULN; BABA; CVNA; TAL; EOSE; NKLA; AI; AXL; BYND
Top 10 bearish stocks: NU; AMC; AAPL; BAC; META; AMZN; CCL; ENVX; COTY; GOOGL
Based on option delta volume, traders bought a net equivalent of 3,050,530 shares of Rivian stock. The largest bullish delta came from buying 15-Sep-23 40 Call, with traders getting long 758,483 deltas on the single option contract. $RIVN 20230915 40.0 CALL$
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