Wall Street ended Friday with all three benchmarks more than 3% lower, as Federal Reserve Chief Jerome Powell's signal that the central bank would keep hiking rates to tame inflation nixed nascent hopes for a more modest path among some investors.
The S&P 500 lost 141.46 points, or 3.37%, to end at 4,057.66 points, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 497.56 points, or 3.94%, to 12,141.71. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,008.38 points, or 3.03%, to 32,283.40.
Options Broad View
A total volume of 43,593,000 contracts are traded on Friday, up 34% from the previous day. Call options account for 52% of total options trades.
There are 9.93 million SPDR S&P500 ETF Trust options traded on Friday. Call options account for 44% in overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $370 strike put option expiring September 16, with 143,961 contracts trading on Friday.
Top 10 Option Volumes
Top 10:SPY, QQQ, TSLA, AAPL, NVDA, IWM, AMNZ, BABA, BBBY, HYG
Options related to equity index ETFs are still top choices for investors, with 3.46 million Invest QQQ Trust ETF options contracts trading on Friday. Total trading volume for SPY and QQQ increase 114% and 113%, respectively, from the previous day.
Powell's speech and the 3-for-1 stock split with the Tesla stock make it easier to create income by shorting covered calls and cash-secured puts. This is because less money has to be put up as collateral.
There are 2.65 million Tesla option contracts traded on Friday. Call options account for 53% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $300 strike call option expiring September 2, with 53,572 contracts trading on Friday.
Regarding Apple, a total volume of 1.68M APPL option contracts is traded on Friday. Call options account for 53% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $170 strike call option expiring September 2, with 62,929 contracts trading on Friday.
Unusual Options Activity
The shares of Alibaba are down 1.89% to trade at $98 on Friday, following Washington and Beijing had reached an agreement allowing U.S. auditors to inspect China-based accountants, the first step in a process that could prevent around 200 Chinese companies being kicked off American stock exchanges.
There are 701.9K Alibaba option contracts traded on Friday. Call options account for 79% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $105 strike call option expiring September 2, with 28,360 contracts trading on Friday.
Shares of Affirm Holdings Inc tumbled 21.3% on Friday after the buy-now-pay-later lender forecast full-year revenue below Wall Street estimates, underscoring the broader downturn in the fortunes of the once high-flying fintech sector.
There are 307.8K Affirm option contracts traded on Friday. Call options account for 50% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $20 strike put option expiring September 16, with 9,816 contracts trading on Friday.
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: SPY, IWM, SIRI, CLAR, SQQQ, AMC, FTCH, HYG, DOCU, NVDA
SPY had the highest bullish wagers, with traders getting long 7M deltas on balance. AMC and Nvidia also saw bullish option activities.
Total options volume related to IWM also saw an increase on Friday. There are 1.03M IWM option contracts traded on Friday. Put options account for 78% of overall option trades.
Fed chief Jerome Powell stepped up the fight against inflation in his Jackson Hole speech on Friday, making it clear that there will be no "pivot" to a looser policy stance any time soon.
Instead, U.S. households and businesses will have to endure some "pain" as the central bank raises interest rates as high as necessary to get inflation back under control.
Top 10 bearish stocks: SOFI, AAPL, TQQQ, UVXY, TSLA, KWEB, AMZN, F, SOXY, QQQ
SoFi Technologies saw options trading volume of 239.5K contracts on Friday, call options account for 79%. Particularly high volume was seen for the $6.5 strike call option expiring September 2, with 16,930 contracts trading on Friday.
SoFi Technologies Inc is down 7.62% on Friday. President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday a plan to forgive $10K of student debt for borrowers who earn less than $125K per year and extended the pause on federally backed student loan repayments by four monthsto Dec. 31, in line with earlier reports.