To The Moon

I. Fundamentals: AI Execution Remains the Core Debate Microsoft reports Q4 FY26 results after the close on July 29. Market focus centers on three points: Azure growth following new capacity rollouts, the pressure of capital expenditures on margins and free cash flow, and M365 Copilot adoption rates along with broader AI monetization capability. Azure year-over-year growth is the key metric to monitor, with company guidance at 39–40%. FY26 Q4 capital expenditures (including leases) are expected to reach $42 billion, up 32% quarter-over-quarter and 74% year-over-year, compressing free cash flow from $25.5 billion last quarter to $14.4 billion. M365 Copilot added 5 million paid seats in FY26 Q3, bringing the total to 20 million, with AI annual recurring revenue (ARR) exceeding $37 billion, up

This week's price action in U.S. equities is critical for the market trend over the next several weeks — above all the FOMC decision due early Thursday Beijing time. The U.S. indices have arrived at a very important support level, and once a key variable pushes them into choosing a direction, the broader medium-term trend could change. The current calm may therefore be brewing sharp volatility in the back half of the week. First, the latest developments on the technical side As you can see, the Nasdaq has now reached a very critical level. On the head-and-shoulders top pattern, the formation can already be treated as a breakdown of the head structure; by conventional technical projection, the subsequent downside would theoretically be roughly equal to the distance from the head to the curr

$Ecolab(ECL)$ is generally associated with industrial cleaning, sanitation and water treatment. Its latest results reveal a less obvious growth engine: cooling and water-management systems for semiconductor plants and data centres. Second-quarter sales reached approximately $4.42 billion, while adjusted earnings increased 11% to $2.09 per share. Organic sales grew 5%, supported by pricing and strength in Life Sciences, Food & Beverage, Digital and Global High-Tech. Management raised expected 2026 adjusted earnings to $8.05–$8.25 per share. Ecolab’s investor-relations results page provides the earnings materials and filing. The Global High-Tech platform is approaching $1.5 billion in annualized sales. Management expects the business to reach app

SK Hynix (SKHY) has seen extreme volatility since its listing, with IV surging to 130% — a classic setup where fundamentals are solid but short-term panic prevails, often creating opportunities for deep OTM option sellers. This post walks you through the fundamental logic, market sentiment, and the complete trade setup behind a Sell Put. Part 1: Why Won't It Fall Much? HSBC's report laid out the current situation in the Korean stock market clearly: the market is indeed facing the risk of a "Minsky moment" due to high leverage — the leverage factors that drove stock prices higher over the past few months are now reversing, and the daily rebalancing of single-stock leveraged ETFs amplifies selling pressure during downturns. HSBC estimates that if stock prices fall another 10%, just SK Hynix

The highlight of earnings season is here: TSMC reports on Thursday (July 16). This post takes you from fundamentals, volatility calculations, and large order signals all the way to strategy positioning for three scenarios — a complete guide on how to trade earnings without stepping on landmines. Part 1: Fundamentals — What Is the Market Watching? TSMC is a company that reports monthly results, so revenue and profit are public information that has largely been priced into the stock price well in advance. Market expectations for this report are very high: full-year revenue guidance is expected to be raised to 40%, gross margin above 67%, 2026 capex raised to $56 billion, with total capex over 2026–2028 expected to reach $206 billion. The two most closely watched metrics are gross margin and

Earnings season is here, and many traders want to use options to catch big moves. But earnings options are exactly where most people get burned: they get the direction right, yet still lose money. Today we'll cover two key things: how to properly estimate earnings-related volatility, and how to understand IV Crush — "the buyer's enemy and the seller's friend." Part 1: Volatility Is Not a Gut Feeling How much a stock will move after earnings isn't something you need to guess — the market has already priced in the expected range. The calculation is straightforward, using the ATM Straddle: Straddle Price ≈ At-the-Money Call Premium + At-the-Money Put Premium Market's Expected Move ≈ Straddle Price ÷ Current Stock Price This is your baseline: only when the actual price move exceeds this number

A headline crossed today: 25-year-old "Wall Street prodigy" Leopold Aschenbrenner disclosed his fund's holdings. As of March 31st, his reported put options were valued at approximately $8.459 billion — spanning SMH, NVDA, MU, AVGO, AMD, TSM, and others. 13F filings reflect actual holdings at quarter end. Closed positions don't appear. So this report wouldn't include weekly puts. But the list of names feels familiar — and brings me back to some massive put orders we saw in Q1: Israel-Iran conflict: risk fully priced? *100k weekly puts bet NVDA below 170* If you've been following, you'll remember the relentless wave of semiconductor put prints back in

$SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ Following the bullish 800 calls, SPY is now seeing a new wave of aggressive long positions — large blocks of deep OTM call options:$SPY 20271217 1095.0 CALL$  $SPY 20271217 1100.0 CALL$  $SPY 20271217 1110.0 CALL$  $SPY 20271217 1120.0 CALL$ . Total premium flow: under $8 million. These December 2027 expiries (1095, 1100, 1110, 1120 strikes) each saw 10,000 contracts opened on Wednesday, direction buys. These calls have deltas below 0.1 — e

$Direxion Daily Semiconductors Bull 3x Shares(SOXL)$ The large put order $SOXL 20260612 170.0 PUT$  closed faster than expected — marking the end of this round of selling. The bears had hoped to push this down to the 10-day or even 20-day moving average. But dip buyers showed up in force, far outnumbering the panicked sellers. Expect more one-day pullbacks like this in the future — but not necessarily more follow-through. $Sony(SONY)$ Sony's base case: 25. Bull case: 30. On Monday, a 60k contract order hit the July 25 call $SONY 20260717 25.0 CALL$ . Another 9k were add

SOXL Why near-term? Because this pullback appears carefully orchestrated. On Tuesday, a large bearish order hit the triple-long semiconductor ETF: $SOXL 20260612 170.0 PUT$   — 17,000 contracts, over $40 million in premium. You can gauge conviction by the notional. At $40M+, this isn't a lottery ticket — it's a serious short. Large orders in leveraged ETFs are rare — they decay over time and don't behave well in slow grinding moves. When they show up, it signals an explosive move either way. Expiration is June 12, roughly 30 days out, implying a short, sharp correction — could last a week, maybe two. These trades tend to take profits quickly. So watch the 170 put

$SPY$ S&P 8,000 isn't just a random headline. It's backed by recent positioning — a number of far-dated call options at the 800 strike have seen significant volume: $SPY 20270319 800.0 CALL$ $SPY 20260930 800.0 CALL$ $SPY 20270617 800.0 CALL$  These were opened at different times: early April, mid-April, and just a couple of days ago. Looking at the expirations, no one expects this to happen overnight — Q3 at the earliest. But at this pace, I wouldn't be surprised if SPY hits 800 by June. The catalyst behind this surge is simple — and I've mentioned it before: Anthropic's revenue da

$INTC$ An absolutely absurd rally. I thought recommending sell puts yesterday was aggressive — turns out it was still too conservative. Some large call buys have appeared, like $INTC 20260821 110.0 CALL$  and $INTC 20260618 130.0 CALL$ . That said, judging by the tape, some of those may have been closed by the end of the day. Put strikes are roughly where expected — around 70. Selling puts at that level is fine, or just wait for a pullback. For holders: not every potential pullback requires exiting a position. Some may try to sell high and buy back lower — but this year, that's a great way to get left behind. $NVDA$ Same view as yesterday: range-bound

Tonight's price action says it all. The sell-off stems from a rumor about OpenAI's performance — specifically, that the company missed its internal revenue target for the first quarter. That's awkward. Competitors Google and Anthropic are both seeing growth. Only OpenAI is stagnating. If Google and Anthropic fail to deliver results this year, the US market would be looking at a crash far worse than tonight's move. All things considered, tonight's drop isn't that severe. This OpenAI revenue news is essentially a mini-earnings report. Barring surprises, we're likely to see this same dynamic repeat next quarter. On the flip side, we could also see a similar repeat of the Anthropic growth narrative. The biggest issue from OpenAI's miss: the company pre-booked massive data center capacity. If r

$NVDA$ For the first time in nine months, NVDA looks ready to break into a new range. We're now in the phase of testing the upper bound — expectations point to 225–235. Given NVDA's massive market cap, a 10–20% surge isn't exactly typical. That makes selling puts a more comfortable way to chase the move. The strike depends on your risk tolerance. $AMD$ AMD should hit 400 this year. Pullbacks are good entry points. Right now, the bears are targeting the 5-day moving average at 310 and the gap at 300. If this were last year's market, I'd say AMD would either rally into earnings or hold 330 in a tight range, then pull back post-print — a perfect entry opportunity. But after Intel's earnings, those old rules may not apply. That said, Friday's jump likely priced in much of the upside. So the po

$INTC$ Selling premium in this market is tricky — you never know which stock will catch a hot narrative and get flooded with retail flow. Looking at recent chip earnings, even good expectations aren't enough if the numbers fall short. Intel's earnings should be solid, with full-year guidance likely raised. But some of the run-up is already priced in. Selling puts is still the safer approach — consider the 60 strike $INTC 20260424 60.0 PUT$ . There were quite a few 50-strike puts positioned for a pullback. But given the current CPU hype, 50 will attract strong dip-buying. Most put flow seems to have abandoned the 50 target, shifting focus to the 55–60 range. Earnings could still produce a sell-off. That said, I wouldn't rec

$NVDA$ You have to admit — 200 is a tough ceiling. This week's institutional spread: sell the 202.5 call $NVDA 20260424 202.5 CALL$ , buy the 207.5 call $NVDA 20260424 207.5 CALL$ . Expecting a broader chip pullback after Intel earnings — that 182.5 put $NVDA 20260424 182.5 PUT$  is still open. That said, NVDA likely stays above 190 this week. $TSLA$ Institutional spread this week: sell the 400 call $TSLA 20260424 400.0 CALL$ , buy the 420 call $TSLA 20260

ASML and TSMC earnings have essentially set the tone for this earnings season: solid results, but the stock opens lower. A couple of days ago, I mentioned that shorts were stepping in. On Wednesday, the bearish flow intensified, with two large orders in particular catching my attention. $NVDA Buy $NVDA 20260424 182.5 PUT$  — 50k contracts, notional ~$3M. As shown in the chart, institutions were actively buying these 182.5 puts expiring next week in the final minutes of yesterday's session. The implication: unless nothing happens over the weekend, something will. Not necessarily Iran — could be something else. Given how ASML has traded lower post-earnings, the expectation of a pullback to key moving averages seems increasi

$VIX$ A large VIX call order hit Tuesday: the 28 strike $VIX 20260519 28.0 CALL$  — 119.6k contracts, $11.48M in premium. A bet of this size implies a sharp, gap-filling move lower in the broader market. In theory, regional conflicts are winding down. The only thing Trump might be missing this time around — compared to 2025 — is that he never got to shout "buy" before the market did it on its own. But triggering a selloff just so he can make a speech? That sounds ridiculous. I'd rather believe someone else has an unknown reason to hedge with volatility. Another less clear VIX call: the 24 strike $VIX 20260722 24.0 CALL$ . The print landed right in the bid-

The whole world now believes Trump won't keep fighting, so stocks keep rallying. There's a big difference between actually wanting war and pretending to fight while wanting a deal. As a result, some well-placed insider short positions that were heavily positioned for a crash this week are getting crushed — like the 31.3k contracts of the SMH 405 put for this week $SMH 20260417 405.0 PUT$ . Of course, something else could still happen this week. But looking at the lifecycle of these weekly options, this large order is likely headed to zero — unless Trump drops another "obliteration" tweet. Even then, I think the market would keep rallying. At today's open, a large bullish order hit: the software ETF IGV 90 call

That's not an easy question to answer. But I checked the two perfectly timed insider large orders — $MU 20260618 400.0 CALL$  and $TSM 20260618 370.0 CALL$  — and neither has been closed. That suggests the trend could continue into earnings season. What's different between Q2 and Q1? Aside from the war, Anthropic announced $30B+ annualized revenue. Unlike OpenAI's verbal bragging, this sharp growth gives the AI sector a real shot in the arm. It won't lift all tech stocks, but it does keep the narrative alive that AI investment can generate strong returns. Anthropic's rapid rise is bad news for the software sector $IGV$, which is trending as weakly as Chin

This week's price action in U.S. equities is critical for the market trend over the next several weeks — above all the FOMC decision due early Thursday Beijing time. The U.S. indices have arrived at a very important support level, and once a key variable pushes them into choosing a direction, the broader medium-term trend could change. The current calm may therefore be brewing sharp volatility in the back half of the week. First, the latest developments on the technical side As you can see, the Nasdaq has now reached a very critical level. On the head-and-shoulders top pattern, the formation can already be treated as a breakdown of the head structure; by conventional technical projection, the subsequent downside would theoretically be roughly equal to the distance from the head to the curr

I. Fundamentals: AI Execution Remains the Core Debate Microsoft reports Q4 FY26 results after the close on July 29. Market focus centers on three points: Azure growth following new capacity rollouts, the pressure of capital expenditures on margins and free cash flow, and M365 Copilot adoption rates along with broader AI monetization capability. Azure year-over-year growth is the key metric to monitor, with company guidance at 39–40%. FY26 Q4 capital expenditures (including leases) are expected to reach $42 billion, up 32% quarter-over-quarter and 74% year-over-year, compressing free cash flow from $25.5 billion last quarter to $14.4 billion. M365 Copilot added 5 million paid seats in FY26 Q3, bringing the total to 20 million, with AI annual recurring revenue (ARR) exceeding $37 billion, up

$Ecolab(ECL)$ is generally associated with industrial cleaning, sanitation and water treatment. Its latest results reveal a less obvious growth engine: cooling and water-management systems for semiconductor plants and data centres. Second-quarter sales reached approximately $4.42 billion, while adjusted earnings increased 11% to $2.09 per share. Organic sales grew 5%, supported by pricing and strength in Life Sciences, Food & Beverage, Digital and Global High-Tech. Management raised expected 2026 adjusted earnings to $8.05–$8.25 per share. Ecolab’s investor-relations results page provides the earnings materials and filing. The Global High-Tech platform is approaching $1.5 billion in annualized sales. Management expects the business to reach app

The highlight of earnings season is here: TSMC reports on Thursday (July 16). This post takes you from fundamentals, volatility calculations, and large order signals all the way to strategy positioning for three scenarios — a complete guide on how to trade earnings without stepping on landmines. Part 1: Fundamentals — What Is the Market Watching? TSMC is a company that reports monthly results, so revenue and profit are public information that has largely been priced into the stock price well in advance. Market expectations for this report are very high: full-year revenue guidance is expected to be raised to 40%, gross margin above 67%, 2026 capex raised to $56 billion, with total capex over 2026–2028 expected to reach $206 billion. The two most closely watched metrics are gross margin and

SK Hynix (SKHY) has seen extreme volatility since its listing, with IV surging to 130% — a classic setup where fundamentals are solid but short-term panic prevails, often creating opportunities for deep OTM option sellers. This post walks you through the fundamental logic, market sentiment, and the complete trade setup behind a Sell Put. Part 1: Why Won't It Fall Much? HSBC's report laid out the current situation in the Korean stock market clearly: the market is indeed facing the risk of a "Minsky moment" due to high leverage — the leverage factors that drove stock prices higher over the past few months are now reversing, and the daily rebalancing of single-stock leveraged ETFs amplifies selling pressure during downturns. HSBC estimates that if stock prices fall another 10%, just SK Hynix

Earnings season is here, and many traders want to use options to catch big moves. But earnings options are exactly where most people get burned: they get the direction right, yet still lose money. Today we'll cover two key things: how to properly estimate earnings-related volatility, and how to understand IV Crush — "the buyer's enemy and the seller's friend." Part 1: Volatility Is Not a Gut Feeling How much a stock will move after earnings isn't something you need to guess — the market has already priced in the expected range. The calculation is straightforward, using the ATM Straddle: Straddle Price ≈ At-the-Money Call Premium + At-the-Money Put Premium Market's Expected Move ≈ Straddle Price ÷ Current Stock Price This is your baseline: only when the actual price move exceeds this number

$SPY$ S&P 8,000 isn't just a random headline. It's backed by recent positioning — a number of far-dated call options at the 800 strike have seen significant volume: $SPY 20270319 800.0 CALL$ $SPY 20260930 800.0 CALL$ $SPY 20270617 800.0 CALL$  These were opened at different times: early April, mid-April, and just a couple of days ago. Looking at the expirations, no one expects this to happen overnight — Q3 at the earliest. But at this pace, I wouldn't be surprised if SPY hits 800 by June. The catalyst behind this surge is simple — and I've mentioned it before: Anthropic's revenue da

A headline crossed today: 25-year-old "Wall Street prodigy" Leopold Aschenbrenner disclosed his fund's holdings. As of March 31st, his reported put options were valued at approximately $8.459 billion — spanning SMH, NVDA, MU, AVGO, AMD, TSM, and others. 13F filings reflect actual holdings at quarter end. Closed positions don't appear. So this report wouldn't include weekly puts. But the list of names feels familiar — and brings me back to some massive put orders we saw in Q1: Israel-Iran conflict: risk fully priced? *100k weekly puts bet NVDA below 170* If you've been following, you'll remember the relentless wave of semiconductor put prints back in

$SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ Following the bullish 800 calls, SPY is now seeing a new wave of aggressive long positions — large blocks of deep OTM call options:$SPY 20271217 1095.0 CALL$  $SPY 20271217 1100.0 CALL$  $SPY 20271217 1110.0 CALL$  $SPY 20271217 1120.0 CALL$ . Total premium flow: under $8 million. These December 2027 expiries (1095, 1100, 1110, 1120 strikes) each saw 10,000 contracts opened on Wednesday, direction buys. These calls have deltas below 0.1 — e

$Direxion Daily Semiconductors Bull 3x Shares(SOXL)$ The large put order $SOXL 20260612 170.0 PUT$  closed faster than expected — marking the end of this round of selling. The bears had hoped to push this down to the 10-day or even 20-day moving average. But dip buyers showed up in force, far outnumbering the panicked sellers. Expect more one-day pullbacks like this in the future — but not necessarily more follow-through. $Sony(SONY)$ Sony's base case: 25. Bull case: 30. On Monday, a 60k contract order hit the July 25 call $SONY 20260717 25.0 CALL$ . Another 9k were add

$INTC$ An absolutely absurd rally. I thought recommending sell puts yesterday was aggressive — turns out it was still too conservative. Some large call buys have appeared, like $INTC 20260821 110.0 CALL$  and $INTC 20260618 130.0 CALL$ . That said, judging by the tape, some of those may have been closed by the end of the day. Put strikes are roughly where expected — around 70. Selling puts at that level is fine, or just wait for a pullback. For holders: not every potential pullback requires exiting a position. Some may try to sell high and buy back lower — but this year, that's a great way to get left behind. $NVDA$ Same view as yesterday: range-bound

SOXL Why near-term? Because this pullback appears carefully orchestrated. On Tuesday, a large bearish order hit the triple-long semiconductor ETF: $SOXL 20260612 170.0 PUT$   — 17,000 contracts, over $40 million in premium. You can gauge conviction by the notional. At $40M+, this isn't a lottery ticket — it's a serious short. Large orders in leveraged ETFs are rare — they decay over time and don't behave well in slow grinding moves. When they show up, it signals an explosive move either way. Expiration is June 12, roughly 30 days out, implying a short, sharp correction — could last a week, maybe two. These trades tend to take profits quickly. So watch the 170 put

$VIX$ A large VIX call order hit Tuesday: the 28 strike $VIX 20260519 28.0 CALL$  — 119.6k contracts, $11.48M in premium. A bet of this size implies a sharp, gap-filling move lower in the broader market. In theory, regional conflicts are winding down. The only thing Trump might be missing this time around — compared to 2025 — is that he never got to shout "buy" before the market did it on its own. But triggering a selloff just so he can make a speech? That sounds ridiculous. I'd rather believe someone else has an unknown reason to hedge with volatility. Another less clear VIX call: the 24 strike $VIX 20260722 24.0 CALL$ . The print landed right in the bid-

$NVDA$ For the first time in nine months, NVDA looks ready to break into a new range. We're now in the phase of testing the upper bound — expectations point to 225–235. Given NVDA's massive market cap, a 10–20% surge isn't exactly typical. That makes selling puts a more comfortable way to chase the move. The strike depends on your risk tolerance. $AMD$ AMD should hit 400 this year. Pullbacks are good entry points. Right now, the bears are targeting the 5-day moving average at 310 and the gap at 300. If this were last year's market, I'd say AMD would either rally into earnings or hold 330 in a tight range, then pull back post-print — a perfect entry opportunity. But after Intel's earnings, those old rules may not apply. That said, Friday's jump likely priced in much of the upside. So the po

Tonight's price action says it all. The sell-off stems from a rumor about OpenAI's performance — specifically, that the company missed its internal revenue target for the first quarter. That's awkward. Competitors Google and Anthropic are both seeing growth. Only OpenAI is stagnating. If Google and Anthropic fail to deliver results this year, the US market would be looking at a crash far worse than tonight's move. All things considered, tonight's drop isn't that severe. This OpenAI revenue news is essentially a mini-earnings report. Barring surprises, we're likely to see this same dynamic repeat next quarter. On the flip side, we could also see a similar repeat of the Anthropic growth narrative. The biggest issue from OpenAI's miss: the company pre-booked massive data center capacity. If r

$INTC$ Selling premium in this market is tricky — you never know which stock will catch a hot narrative and get flooded with retail flow. Looking at recent chip earnings, even good expectations aren't enough if the numbers fall short. Intel's earnings should be solid, with full-year guidance likely raised. But some of the run-up is already priced in. Selling puts is still the safer approach — consider the 60 strike $INTC 20260424 60.0 PUT$ . There were quite a few 50-strike puts positioned for a pullback. But given the current CPU hype, 50 will attract strong dip-buying. Most put flow seems to have abandoned the 50 target, shifting focus to the 55–60 range. Earnings could still produce a sell-off. That said, I wouldn't rec

The whole world now believes Trump won't keep fighting, so stocks keep rallying. There's a big difference between actually wanting war and pretending to fight while wanting a deal. As a result, some well-placed insider short positions that were heavily positioned for a crash this week are getting crushed — like the 31.3k contracts of the SMH 405 put for this week $SMH 20260417 405.0 PUT$ . Of course, something else could still happen this week. But looking at the lifecycle of these weekly options, this large order is likely headed to zero — unless Trump drops another "obliteration" tweet. Even then, I think the market would keep rallying. At today's open, a large bullish order hit: the software ETF IGV 90 call

ASML and TSMC earnings have essentially set the tone for this earnings season: solid results, but the stock opens lower. A couple of days ago, I mentioned that shorts were stepping in. On Wednesday, the bearish flow intensified, with two large orders in particular catching my attention. $NVDA Buy $NVDA 20260424 182.5 PUT$  — 50k contracts, notional ~$3M. As shown in the chart, institutions were actively buying these 182.5 puts expiring next week in the final minutes of yesterday's session. The implication: unless nothing happens over the weekend, something will. Not necessarily Iran — could be something else. Given how ASML has traded lower post-earnings, the expectation of a pullback to key moving averages seems increasi

That's not an easy question to answer. But I checked the two perfectly timed insider large orders — $MU 20260618 400.0 CALL$  and $TSM 20260618 370.0 CALL$  — and neither has been closed. That suggests the trend could continue into earnings season. What's different between Q2 and Q1? Aside from the war, Anthropic announced $30B+ annualized revenue. Unlike OpenAI's verbal bragging, this sharp growth gives the AI sector a real shot in the arm. It won't lift all tech stocks, but it does keep the narrative alive that AI investment can generate strong returns. Anthropic's rapid rise is bad news for the software sector $IGV$, which is trending as weakly as Chin

$NVDA$ You have to admit — 200 is a tough ceiling. This week's institutional spread: sell the 202.5 call $NVDA 20260424 202.5 CALL$ , buy the 207.5 call $NVDA 20260424 207.5 CALL$ . Expecting a broader chip pullback after Intel earnings — that 182.5 put $NVDA 20260424 182.5 PUT$  is still open. That said, NVDA likely stays above 190 this week. $TSLA$ Institutional spread this week: sell the 400 call $TSLA 20260424 400.0 CALL$ , buy the 420 call $TSLA 20260