Market Overview
U.S. stocks mixed on Wednesday as a robust upward GDP revision eased recession fears, while Federal Reserve officials' remarks raised questions about the duration of the central bank's restrictive policy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.04%, the S&P 500 lost 0.09%, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.16%.
Regarding the options market, a total volume of 41,364,037 contracts was traded, up 23.08% from the previous trading day.
Top 10 Option Volumes
Top 10: SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, Invesco QQQ Trust-ETF, Tesla Motors, iShares Russell 2000 ETF, Cboe Volatility Index, NVIDIA Corp, Bank of America, $iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF, GameStop, Apple
GameStop continued to surge 20.46% on Wednesday as investors seem to be rushing back into the retail stock ahead of the earnings report next week.
There were 622K GameStop option contracts traded on Wednesday, jumping over 260% from the previous day. Call options account for 82% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $16 strike call option expiring December 1 $GME 20231201 16.0 CALL$, with 37,579 contracts trading. Meanwhile, the $17.5 strike call option expiring December 1 $GME 20231201 17.5 CALL$ rose 1133% on Wednesday.
Unusual Options Activity
Sea Ltd crashed 7.5% on Wednesday as TikTok would be able to freely collaborate with any e-commerce platforms as long as it abides by applicable rules in Indonesia.
There were 190K Sea Ltd option contracts traded on Wednesday, doubling from the previous day. Call options account for 61% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $36 strike put option expiring December 1 $SE 20231201 36.0 PUT$, with 2,897 contracts trading. Meanwhile, the $37 strike put option expiring December 1 $SE 20231201 37.0 PUT$ rose 762.5% on Wednesday.
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. soared 10.4% on Wednesday as its earnings and revenue beat analysts' expectations and it boosted its fiscal-year forecast.
There were 191.2K CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. option contracts traded on Wednesday, jumping over 50% from the previous day. Call options account for 58% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $230 strike call option expiring December 1 $CRWD 20231201 230.0 CALL$, with 13,314 contracts trading. Meanwhile, the $225 strike call option expiring December 1 $CRWD 20231201 225.0 CALL$ rose 258.46% on Wednesday.
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: McDonald's, Coca-Cola, AT&T Inc, Bank of America, VF Corp, Exxon Mobil, PG&E Corp, Marriott, Salesforce.com, Merck
Top 10 bearish stocks: Apple, Tesla Motors, Ford, Citigroup, Wal-Mart, NVIDIA Corp, Dominion Resources, Microsoft, PayPal, Pepsi
Based on option delta volume, traders sold a net equivalent of -3,877,636 shares of Apple stock. The largest bearish delta came from selling calls.
The largest delta volume came from the 01-Dec-23 192.5 Call $AAPL 20231201 192.5 CALL$, with traders getting short 1,404,871 deltas on the single option contract.
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