U.S. options traders bet on fresh stock highs in tech leaders

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Traders bet on tech highs

Highlights

Call-to-put volume ratio in SPY and QQQ hits highest levels since May and over a year respectively, signaling strong bullish options sentiment.
Meta Platforms' weekly options volume exceeds four times the 30-day average, with a 52% probability it reaches $790 by Oct. 2 according to ThinkOrSwim.
Intel surges 35% over the past month as options market-makers assign even odds it exceeds its $140 high by Oct. 30 amid accelerating activity.

Options positioning signals near-term upside

As reported by CNBC, bullish options activity in broad market vehicles is strengthening even as relatively few stocks are posting fresh highs on the New York Stock Exchange. On Tuesday, 75 stocks make new 52-week lows, versus 14 names making new highs, while traders continue adding upside exposure in indexes and market leaders.

Monday’s rally is strong enough to suggest some institutional market-makers are caught offsides and have to buy upside calls to keep pace with momentum. Barchart data show the volume ratio of calls to puts climbs to its highest level since May, and for the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, or SPY, to its highest since the first week of August.

The same pattern appears in the Invesco QQQ Trust, where the call-to-put ratio reaches its highest level in at least a year. Options pricing on ThinkOrSwim now implies the Nasdaq 100 has better than a 67% chance of touching a new high by the end of the week.

Tech leaders and chip names draw bullish bets

Options pricing in several technology stocks that are driving the latest rally also reflects a positive bias, with market-makers assigning notable odds to fresh records before year-end. Traders use options delta, a measure of price sensitivity, to estimate the probability that a stock will touch a contract’s strike price before expiration.

In Meta Platforms, weekly options volume is running at more than four times the 30-day average, and implied volatility is higher for calls than for puts across the term structure, according to Barchart data. ThinkOrSwim pricing indicates a 52% chance the stock touches $790, its closing high from last year, by Oct. 2.

Intel, up 35% over the past month, is emerging as a leading semiconductor name in the rally as options activity accelerates. Market-makers are assigning roughly even odds that the stock rises above its closing high of about $140 between now and Oct. 30.

Memory stocks are also adding momentum, with the Roundhill Memory ETF advancing 2% on Tuesday, while Sandisk gains more than 6% and Micron rises more than 3%. Options pricing points to a new high in Micron by Oct. 23 and in Sandisk by Dec. 18, though for the DRAM ETF itself, market-makers price only a 34% chance of a new high by Dec. 18.

In our earlier coverage of the Nasdaq’s rebound, we noted how a renewed surge in growth and AI-linked tech helped the index return to an intraday record after the summer selloff. We also highlighted how easing oil prices and resilient demand for semiconductors—with names like AMD back in focus—improved risk appetite across U.S. equities.

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