To The Moon

Manchester United, a listed professional football club, has been subject to takeover speculation since last year. The latest news was that Manchester United had received a takeover offer from a Qatari private investment consortium and that the British billionaire had hired Goldman Sachs and jpmorgan Chase to advise on a takeover bid. United's share price rose as high as 25.5 on the news.

But the options activity shows near-term bearishness:

• sell $MANU 20230421 29.0 CALL$ $MANU 20230421 29.0 CALL$ ​
• ​buy $MANU 20230421 20.0 PUT$ $MANU 20230421 20.0 PUT$ 

The trader buys a put with a strike price of 20 on April 21 and sells a call with a strike price of 29 on the same date, meaning he doesn't think United will rise above 29 or even fall below 20 before April 21.

Despite a single transaction of $1.3m, if United's share price had been below 29 but above 20 by April 21st, the trader would have spent only a small fee, with the options hedged against each other.

If United's share price falls below 20 by April 21, the trader will not only pocket the $1.3 million in option royalties from the sell call, but also make a profit from the buy put.

So far, everything seems normal. Why do I say this guy has something?

Because without insider knowledge, no one would sell call a company with all kinds of takeover news, right?

If United had been bought for more than $29 before April 21, that strategy would have lost more than $2.6 million.

So acquisition time or acquisition valuation he must know one, otherwise dare not do this strategy.

But I don't recommend that you make the same trades, and insider trading is not always 100% accurate.

I think the trading information provided by this set of strategies is suitable for elimination. If someone bought the recent call of Manchester United can consider closing the position. Before April 21, there is a high probability that the share price will not rise again, do not lose the time value of the option.

As a final reminder, a semiconductor correction may be underway: $NVDA 20230721 200.0 PUT$ $NVDA 20230721 200.0 PUT$ 

One direction to buy a total of more than 6 million. It is a typical directional large order.