The market discusses the

Source: Wall Street News

Mysterious options buyers bet on US stocks rising, spending $3 billion.

According to Bloomberg, in the past month, some institutional investors have steadily bought a large number of U.S. stock call options that expired in June 2027, spanning many large U.S. companies. According to Nomura Securities statistics, the total option bonus for these options trading is close to US$3 billion.

The report said that the mysterious buyer's identity has not been confirmed, but his trading model is extremely consistent, indicating that the same party is building positions or that other investors may be imitating these transactions.

In a report to clients on Wednesday, Nomura cross-asset strategist Charlie McElligott described the round of call buying as "extremely spectacular."

Focus on betting on technology giants, options are expensive

It is reported that the buying time for these huge call options coincides with the Nasdaq 100 rising 24% since April 8 and is concentrated on tech giants.

Nomura data shows that the option buyer spent $316 million on Amazon's flat-value call options, $159 million on similar options in Salesforce, and a staggering $878 million on Arm.

The flat-value call option is the exercise price close to the market trading price level, which means that if the stock price rises or volatility increases, the option value will also rise.

It is worth noting that since these options are several years away from expiration, their option premiums are much higher than short-term contracts.

For example, the 2,200 ARM call options that expired in June 2027 and exercised at $130 were traded on Wednesday, with a price of up to $47.40 per contract. Although the total option bonus in this transaction is as high as US$10.4 million, the trading volume only accounts for 0.2% of the overall option holdings.

Targeting to be long volatility?

In this round of options buying wave, the implied volatility of the Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ) two-year options rose to its highest level since January this year compared with the S&P 500 ETF (SPY).

Although short-term market volatility indicators have fallen after soaring in early April, the 60-day volatility of QQQ and SPY remained at their highest in nearly five years.

Chris Murphy, co-head of derivatives strategy at Susquehanna International Group, speculated that the buyer is "a global macro player with strong capital and overall optimistic overall, hoping to make a profit when volatility increases by holding options."

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