Market Overview
U.S. stocks closed higher on Friday (Dec. 8), with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq notching their highest closing levels since early 2022 after a robust U.S. jobs report fueled investor optimism about a soft landing for the economy.
Regarding the options market, a total volume of 40,010,627 contracts was traded, up 9% from the previous trading day.
Top 10 Option Volumes
Top 10: SPY, QQQ, TSLA, AMD, NVDA, IWM, AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, VIX
Options related to equity index ETFs are still popular with investors, with 7.65 million SPDR S&P500 ETF Trust (SPY) and 3.41 million Invest QQQ Trust ETF (QQQ) options contracts trading on Friday.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shares rose another 0.4% on Friday. The shares jumped 9.9% on Thursday to close at $128.37, marking the stock’s best day since May and the highest close since June. The surge comes a day after it launched new artificial intelligence chips that will compete against Nvidia to power AI applications.
On Wednesday, AMD CEO Lisa Su discussed the previously announced Instinct MI300X, a large graphics processor designed for AI-oriented servers, and said Microsoft and Meta had committed to using the chip.
There are 1.33 million AMD option contracts traded on Friday, down 25% from the previous trading day. Call options account for 69% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $130 strike call option expiring December 8, with 149,158 contracts trading. While particularly high Turnover was seen for the $130 strike call option expiring December 15, with 62,242 contracts trading. AMD 20231215 130.0 CALL
Unusual Options Activity
Crypto stocks jumped again on Friday as Bitcoin held above $43,000. Discussions between the U.S. securities regulator and asset managers hoping to list bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have advanced to key technical details, in a sign the agency may soon approve the products, industry executives said. Marathon Digital Holdings Inc stock jumped 8.2%.
There are 338.7K Marathon Digital option contracts traded on Friday, up 82% from the previous trading day. Call options account for 70% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $16.5 strike call option expiring December 8, with 24,130 contracts trading.
Editor Note: Bitcoin price dropped 8% in the early Asian session, briefly tagging the $40,000 level. According to data from CoinGlass, this move caused nearly $200 million worth of positions to be liquidated. With the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Fed's interest rate decision set to take place this week, volatility is likely going to remain high. So crypto stocks could see significant fluctuations this week, please be aware of the risks.
TOP 10 Bullish & Bearish S&P 500
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.
Based on option delta volume, traders sold a net equivalent of -3,971,984 shares of Tesla Motors stock. The largest bearish delta came from selling calls. The largest delta volume came from the 08-Dec-23 245 Call, with traders getting short 4,443,353 deltas on the single option contract.
Top 10 bullish stocks: CCL, BA, VZ, LULU, META, OXY, WBA, GM, SCHW, CZR
Top 10 bearish stocks: TSLA, AAPL, AMD, BAC, F, WMT, AAL, AMZN, FSLR; PFE
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