To The Moon

With markets still cautious about the pace of the Fed's rate cut schedule this year and when it will be able to achieve its 2 percent inflation target, Treasury rates surged on Monday and major U.S. stock indexes were mixed. Trump Media plunged after reporting losses last year. Microsoft snapped a five-game losing streak. Micron is up more than 5%. Alphabet hits record high. Overall, investors remain cautiously bearish on the S&P 500 future market, but individual bullish forces have not completely left the field. There may be profit-taking in technology stocks.

• Overall volume of S&P 500 options shows that bearish sentiment prevails. Put open interest continues to grow, far outpacing call options.

• The second new call is the April 19 585 forward call, which is mainly a buy open position, suggesting some expectation of a 12 percent rise in the S&P 500 in about three weeks.

• However, the important trading direction of the intra-500 call option expiring on April 17 is sell, which forms a combination option with the put option at the same price.

• Semiconductor stocks Nvidia and AMD saw large selling calls, 950 and 185 calls expiring on April 26, respectively.

Details:

SPY Option Evaluation Shows Bearish Trading Intentions, Put Open Interest Continues Growing, Far Exceeding Calls

The top new call opener was the deep in-the-money $SPY 20240621 430.0 CALL$  with a 430 strike price expiring on June 21st, seeing 43,000 new openings. The top new put opener was the $SPY 20240621 430.0 PUT$  with the same 430 strike and June 21st expiry, seeing 41,000 new openings. Both were predominantly traded as option combinations.

The second new call opener was the $SPY 20240419 585.0 CALL$ , mainly buy-to-open orders. Calculated from the closing price of 523.07, it implies expectations of a 12% rise in the S&P 500 over the next three weeks. The third new call opener, $SPY 20240419 530.0 CALL$ , was also predominantly buy-to-open.

However, the fourth new call opener, the in-the-money $SPY 20240517 500.0 CALL$ , had a significant sell-to-open direction, together with the second new put opener $SPY 20240517 500.0 PUT$  as an option combination trade. The second put opener was mainly buy-to-open.

Large sell-to-open orders were seen in call options for semiconductor companies AMD and Nvidia : $AMD 20240426 185.0 CALL$  $NVDA 20240426 950.0 CALL$  , both expiring on April 26th.