To The Moon

The market has been flat lately, with continued sideways moves in early April, volatility too low, and money in the market too scarce, so straddle strategies are making a comeback. Straddle strategy orders can be seen in the option changes of many heavy stocks, such as Apple, where the total turnover of option portfolio is more than 20 million: $AAPL 20230616 165.0 PUT$ $AAPL 20230616 165.0 CALL$ Tesla, for example, has a total options portfolio turnover of more than 17 million: $TSLA 20230519 165.0 CALL$ $TSLA 20230519 165.0 PUT$ Overall market volatility can be referenced by the VIX index. For individual stocks, see the IV Percentile at the top of the options page. IV percentile calculates the percentage of days in the past 52-weeks in which IV was lower than the current value. For example, an IV percentile of 80% means that 80% of the days in the past 52-weeks have had lower levels of IV (IV%= (202 / 252) = 80%). For example, Apple's IV Percentile was 7% yesterday, meaning that its IV was higher on only 7% of the days in the past 52 weeks. After a late day swing, IV Percentile rose slightly to 13.6%. After yesterday's 10% drop, Tesla IV Percentile is at 22.8%. In general, people judge based on common sense, and will not deliberately check the data. Options are expensive when the stock price is volatile. However, in extreme cases, it is possible to give a warning, such as IV Percentile=100%, it is necessary to calmly consider the direction of trading. Tesla fell sharply yesterday, and institutions were more busy closing positions rather than re-placing orders. After all, 160 support is relatively strong, and the lowest point of chasing the short order does not necessarily have much reference significance: $TSLA 20230526 120.0 PUT$ If you find someone buying put options at the top of the stock, you need to be more alert. On March 31, for example, the trader who bought options with a strike price of 207.5put. So it will take two more days to see if Tesla goes up or down, especially if any traders put options on the stock after it rebounds. I can quite understand the idea of cross-strategy at the present stage, because all institutions now have insecurity: the stock market is about to face the last interest rate hike, and according to statistics, the market has a high probability of correction after the last interest rate hike. Money funds could face a default on U.S. debt, and it's not clear whether that would in turn affect the stock market. There's no use worrying about it. It's safer to look for stocks with more certainty: sell $MSFT 20230721 330.0 CALL$ buy $MSFT 20230721 300.0 CALL$ sell $MSFT 20230721 260.0 PUT$ It's a three-legged option strategy, but it's okay to just sell put.