In the past few days, Bloomberg published an article titled Mystery Options Buyer Bets Some $3 Billion on US Stock Rally. The Chinese translation reads: A mysterious options buyer bets about $3 billion on a U.S. stock market rally.The article highlights that Nomura strategists have identified substantial open interest in long-dated call options on several tech stocks over the past month. How long-dated? Specifically, options expiring in June 2027. According to their calculations, the total premium paid for these options amounts to nearly $3 billion.In their client report, Nomura's cross-asset strategists provided examples of three stocks: Amazon, Salesforce, and ARM Holdings. The options buyer spent $316 million on at-the-money options for Amazon, $159 million for Salesforce, and $878 mill

$NVIDIA(NVDA)$ I suspect Trump’s premarket statement on Friday about imposing tariffs on Europe might be an attempt to buy NVIDIA at a lower price ahead of its earnings. Otherwise, why would he show support for his good buddy Musk’s earnings but turn bearish when it’s NVIDIA’s turn?On Thursday, options arbitrage institutions rolled their positions, and judging by the results, next week’s stock price may not be low. They raised the strike prices for their sell call positions to the 144–146 range while hedging with buy calls in the 157.5–162.5 range.From an analysis perspective, NVIDIA’s stock price next week could potentially hit 140, whether it’s before or after the earnings report. Post-earnings, the stock is expected to trade between 130 and 144

$iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF(TLT)$ On Wednesday afternoon, a 20-year U.S. Treasury auction encountered some issues. Weak buyer demand pushed the 30-year Treasury yield above 5%, nearing its highs from Q4 2023.Notably, before the auction, at 10 a.m. EST, with TLT trading around $84.9, a large volume of $TLT 20250627 83.5 CALL$  expiring June 27 was opened. After reviewing the trade details, it was clear that this in-the-money call option was sold.Without a doubt, this is an insider-driven large order.Typically, if one expects a price decline, buying puts might seem like the better choice. However, based on TLT's price chart, the stock is already near its bottom. Comparing the

$NVIDIA(NVDA)$ The volatility is quite muted, with even options trading volume and open interest declining. Let’s briefly discuss NVIDIA's options expiring on the June triple witching day.On Tuesday, there was an increase in bullish open interest around the 140 strike, such as the $NVDA 20250606 140.0 CALL$ . These positions include both bullish and bearish bets, but the specific direction is less important. The key focus is on the overall open interest activity.On the bearish side, there’s a growing presence of deep out-of-the-money put options with a delta absolute value of less than 0.2, such as the $NVDA 20250530 11

$NVIDIA(NVDA)$ On May 19, during the opening of the Taipei International Computer Expo, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang delivered a keynote speech. The speech did not reveal any major surprises: it mainly reiterated the company’s focus on AI communication infrastructure (e.g., NVLink Fusion) and long-term projects (e.g., robotics and Omniverse). Although the U.S. Department of Commerce's restrictions may have short-term impacts, the bearish factors are clear, and the company is expected to accelerate growth again in the second half of the year.As for next week’s earnings report, the bearish factors are also clear. Morgan Stanley analysts noted that they expect investors to anticipate a slight beat in Q2 earnings, with guidance remaining flat or slightly i

$NVIDIA(NVDA)$ This week’s trading range: 125–140.The upper limit of the range is based on institutional spread arbitrage strategies. Although institutions failed twice last week to roll their positions successfully, they continued rolling on Friday. For their arbitrage strategy, the sell call strike remained in the 139–141 range, while the buy call strikes were set at 145, 149, 150, and 152.5.This positioning makes sense. Unless there’s a major bullish catalyst—such as Trump promoting NVIDIA again—it will be difficult for the stock to break above 140, even if it reaches that level. The resistance above 140 remains strong.On the bearish side, the 125 put $NVDA 20250523 125.0 PUT$ 

$NVIDIA(NVDA)$ Next week’s target: 140.On Thursday, May 15th, $NVDA 20250516 132.0 PUT$  saw 58,000 contracts opened, with most of the activity leaning toward buying. The total transaction value was over $1.7 million, indicating that traders are expecting a pullback to 132 by Friday.From the transaction details, the 132 put was bought at NVIDIA’s intraday high. Combined with the transaction size, this suggests that the trader has high confidence in a pullback.However, since everyone is now anticipating a pullback to enter bullish positions, the market rarely aligns with such expectations. I think there’s a higher probability of the stock closing flat.Even if the stock doesn’t pul

$NVIDIA (NVDA)$Heading into earnings, NVIDIA's trading range has shifted to 130–150.Just two days ago, 130 was the upper limit, but now it has become the lower bound after a pullback—this is quite a drastic shift.Institutions have rolled their positions twice within a week, closing out spread positions between 130–137 and rolling into 140–145. Theoretically, there shouldn’t be any further short squeezes on Thursday or Friday. If the stock fails to break through 135, there’s a chance it will drop back to 130.After the roll, the strike price with the highest open interest for this week’s call options is 140. The stock price should stabilize between Thursday and Friday, so selling calls above 140 and selling puts below 130 could be viable strategies.

$NVIDIA(NVDA)$ Feeling frustrated. On Tuesday, after institutions rolled their sell call arbitrage positions due to the short squeeze, NVIDIA’s stock price continued to rise. The primary reason seems to be the potential for another short squeeze following the roll.On Tuesday, the call option open interest was as shown in the chart: for this week’s expiration, all call options between the 132 and 139 strikes were part of institutional arbitrage strategies. When large-scale call options are opened consecutively across strike prices, regardless of whether they are bought or sold, there’s a chance it could lead to another short squeeze.The outcome will likely be one of two extremes: either the stock price shoots straight up to 140, or it pulls back be

$NVIDIA(NVDA)$ The Saudi order triggered a short squeeze. On Monday, the largest new open interest for this week’s expiring call options was at the 125 strike, but institutions didn’t roll their sell call positions in time. As a result, the stock price broke through the 127 hedge point and surged to 130.Based on open interest data, 130 appears to be the extreme price for this week. Institutions have rolled their sell call positions to $NVDA 20250516 132.0 CALL$ , hedging with 137 calls. I followed along to recover some losses.I must admit, Trump’s bullish comments had a surprisingly strong impact. $SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ SPY co

$SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ As expected, some traders are taking a bullish stance early.On Friday, three different expiration dates for SPY saw significant bullish call option activity at the 580 strike price:$SPY 20250512 580.0 CALL$  with 52,000 contracts opened,$SPY 20250512 580.0 CALL$  with 29,000 contracts opened,$SPY 20250512 580.0 CALL$  with 25,000 contracts opened.These large orders were executed just before market close, as identified through unusual options activity filters.Now, you might wonder: with pre-market prices already

$Tesla Motors(TSLA)$ A rare bullish order for Tesla appeared: a short-term bullish option, 300 call $TSLA 20250606 300.0 CALL$ , with 38,000 contracts opened, likely indicating buying activity.At the same time, the top bearish open interest was the 280 put $TSLA 20250509 280.0 PUT$ , with 8,250 contracts opened, primarily sold.Additionally, a significant number of new positions were opened for July-expiry 400–415 calls, such as $TSLA 20250718 400.0 CALL$ . This is worth monitoring.From a trend perspective, 280 has become a new support level,

For fundamentally stable stocks like NVIDIA, while bears and bulls often battle it out, most of the time the market tends to settle on a consensus for the expected trading range, maintaining both bullish and bearish views within a certain zone.However, starting last week around Labor Day, NVIDIA began showing some signals that diverged from the mainstream market sentiment. The dominant expectation in the market is that NVIDIA will fluctuate around $110 until May 16 (monthly option expiration). Yet, some bullish large orders suggest that NVIDIA may experience a move above $115 before the earnings report.Typical recent bullish large orders are mostly focused on May 23 expiration, and are all single-leg positions:Buy $NVDA 20250523

$SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ On Wednesday, there will be a Federal Reserve FOMC meeting, which is expected to keep the interest rate unchanged at 4.375%. The market anticipates a 100-basis-point rate cut before the end of the year, likely starting in July.I think there may be brief volatility post-meeting, but the most important factor in the near term remains the tariff negotiations and their outcomes.Speaking of recent volatility, we can't ignore the old saying about U.S. stocks: Sell in May and go away. However, based on the options open interest, this year's "selling in May" seems to specifically refer to options sellers.On Monday, there were two significant long-term large orders in $SPY, reflecting a bearish outlook on the broader market

$Apple(AAPL)$ The market as a whole has rebounded to pre-tariff levels. However, not all tech stocks have received the same treatment. For instance, Apple saw a significant sell order of 26,000 contracts for the June-expiring 240 call option ($AAPL 20250620 240.0 CALL$ ) on Friday.The 240 level carries some significance—it was the price level prior to the U.S. stock market crash on March 10. On that day, concerns about the health of the U.S. economy shifted investor risk preferences, and the dollar index fell to its lowest point since November of last year. $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ Microsoft's positive earnings report helped the market rebound to

$Microsoft(MSFT)$ Microsoft will release its earnings after the close on Wednesday, but the outlook isn’t very optimistic. Azure’s business is facing macroeconomic uncertainty, leading to decreased demand. Microsoft’s FY25/FY26 total revenue estimates have been revised down to $27.52 billion and $30.648 billion, respectively.However, institutions seem optimistic about Microsoft’s trend. On April 24, options activity showed 16,600 contracts of $MSFT 20250815 430.0 CALL$  were bought, with a transaction value of over $10 million.On April 29, a significant bullish call spread strategy was executed on the exchange:Buy $MSF

$SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ The most indicative SPY long put large order rolled positions, shifting from the June-expiry 545 put $SPY 20250620 545.0 PUT$  to the September-expiry 530 put $SPY 20250919 530.0 PUT$ . The respective volumes were 87,000 and 103,000 contracts.The rolled put option’s strike price is 530, which is lower than the original 545 strike price, suggesting a less optimistic outlook. However, compared to SPY's current price of 550, this pullback expectation is already relatively positive.Why is this the most indicative? The $SPY 2025

In addition to NVDA, TSLA, and SPY, there are also notable large orders for GOOGL, AAPL, PLTR, INTC, ASHR, and CORZ. $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ This week's fluctuation range is broadly 100–115 and narrowly 105–113, depending on the tech earnings reports this week. However, considering the stock price may align with 110 or even reach 120 before May 16, selecting a small position to sell put options with a strike price of 105 is reasonable.Special emphasis on small positions and risk control here. After all, we are in the middle of tariff negotiations. While Trump aims for a quiet earnings season for U.S. stocks, others may not think the same. Ideally, the stock price will trend upward during earnings season, but in a less ideal scenario, a sudden backstab coul

$Tesla Motors(TSLA)$ Elon, it’s great to have you back!On Thursday, April 24, the four most representative bearish options were closed out: $TSLA 20250815 190.0 PUT$ , $TSLA 20250815 185.0 PUT$ , $TSLA 20250815 170.0 PUT$ , $TSLA 20250815 165.0 PUT$ .I talked about these positions in my March 12 article. This time, the bears didn’t close out everything, but they exited the majority. Even though Tesla’s fundamentals haven’t improved much, Musk’s return definitely forced the sho