Put options

Derive

2026-09-30 12:59:53

HYPE options activity on Derive clusters around Oct. 9 expiry

HYPE options trading on Derive is heavily concentrated in contracts expiring on Oct. 9, according to a post from Delphi Digital. The four most active HYPE options contracts on the platform all share that same expiry date. Three of them are call options with strike prices of $90, $95, and $97, while the fourth is a put option with a $77 strike. Over the past 24 hours, the combined notional trading volume of those four contracts reached $3.67 million. Delphi Digital said that figure accounts for roughly one-third of all HYPE options volume tracked by Derive’s options dashboard. The data points to a clear buildup of activity in a narrow set of contracts rather than a broad spread across multiple expiries.

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Michael Burry

2026-09-29 01:32:57

Michael Burry shifts AI bearish bets into puts, says the bubble may break sooner than expected

Michael Burry, the investor portrayed in The Big Short, is moving earlier on his bearish call against the AI trade, according to CNBC. In his latest investor letter, Burry said he has converted part of his direct short positions in Micron Technology, Nebius, Palantir, and the iShares Semiconductor ETF into put options, aiming to gain more leverage at a lower cost. He said current volatility gauges, including the VIX, remain low, making puts relatively cheap. Burry said part of the repositioning is meant to reduce tax drag, but the main reason is his view that the AI bubble "may, sooner or later, burst earlier." He outlined several changes: replacing his Micron short with June expiry puts next year in the $500 strike range, replacing his Nebius short with June expiry puts next year in a double-digit strike range, swapping his SOXX short for puts expiring in September 2027 with strikes slightly above $400, and rolling out and expanding his Palantir bearish position around September 2027 puts with strikes just above $100. He also cited research from Ares Management, arguing that the AI spending boom depends on continued corporate capital expenditure and AI revenue that has not yet been fully validated. Separately, Burry said he remains negative on the memory-chip cycle as Chinese storage-chip capacity keeps rising.

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Duan Yongping

2026-08-20 01:26:49

Duan Yongping discloses Micron options positions after put assignment led to 10,000-share purchase

Well-known investor Duan Yongping said on Aug. 20 in a post on Xueqiu that he was disclosing his positions tied to Micron Technology (MU), along with screenshots of recent trades. In the post, Duan described short-dated option buying as, in many cases, a form of betting, while option sellers may act more like insurance companies or operators of a casino, with the key lying in controlling the odds through rules. He added that selling put options depends on understanding the underlying business, which he framed as a matter of probability and edge. Duan also stressed that investors should not expect to win every trade and should stay away from anything they do not understand. The screenshots attached to the post showed several specific transactions: multiple MU $870 put options expiring in August that expired worthless; the sale on Aug. 11 of 100 MU $870 call contracts expiring on Aug. 26 at a price of $37.55, generating about $375,500 in premium income; and an assignment on Aug. 10 in which he bought 10,000 Micron shares at a cost of $870 per share, for a total of $8.7 million, after a put option was exercised.

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U.S. stocks

2026-08-19 16:27:00

Retail traders pile into U.S. equity puts as bullish positioning shows signs of strain, CNBC says

Retail participation in the U.S. stock market has shifted sharply since April, according to CNBC, citing data from Vanda Research. While direct stock buying by retail investors has declined this year, demand for put options has risen in the opposite direction. Data tracked across the 12 stocks most favored by retail traders in 2026 showed put-option purchases nearly doubled from the first quarter. The report also said put buying as a share of net cash purchases — defined as the gap between money spent buying and selling assets — jumped from about 26% to 110%. Put options are commonly used as a basic defensive derivative because they give holders the right to sell the underlying asset at a preset price before a specified date. Analysts cited in the report linked the broad reduction in long positions to profit-taking after years in which retail traders had success with buy-the-dip strategies. Some of the money pulled from those positions may have moved into more aggressive risk trades, including speculative stocks, leveraged exchange-traded funds, and prediction markets.

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UBS

2026-08-16 02:16:22

UBS boosted IBIT call exposure in Q2, but 13F filing does not show the purpose

UBS reported a sharp increase in call-option exposure tied to BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF, iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), in its latest 13F filing. As of June 30, the number of underlying shares represented by the bank’s IBIT calls rose from 80,000 in March to 1.95 million, a jump of about 2,338%, or roughly 24 times in one quarter. Over the same period, UBS’s non-option IBIT holdings increased 11.94% to 407,900 shares, while its put exposure fell from 303,300 shares to 143,300, a decline of 52.75%. The report said UBS’s total IBIT position was worth about $90 million, up roughly 230% in the first half of the year. The filing, however, does not reveal whether those positions were held for clients, market making, hedging, or the bank’s own directional view, making any straightforward bullish interpretation incomplete.

1100

Michael Burry

2026-08-14 14:07:04

Michael Burry exits Tesla short, shifts bearish bet toward QQQ puts

Michael Burry’s latest portfolio disclosure shows a notable reshaping of his bearish positioning. The investor, widely known as the real-life figure behind The Big Short, has fully closed his short positions in Tesla and Applied Materials, saying both trades were profitable. He also sold all of his put options on the iShares Semiconductor ETF and replaced that trade with a larger put position in the Invesco QQQ Trust, signaling a broader wager against the Nasdaq rather than a narrower bet on semiconductor weakness. On the long side, Burry’s biggest positions were concentrated in Adobe, MercadoLibre, Zoetis and JD.com, each accounting for about 8% of the portfolio. Lululemon, PayPal, Veeva, Flutter, Molina Healthcare and HCA Healthcare each made up roughly 7%, while Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sprouts were each around 5%. His current short book, ranked by size, includes SOXX, Micron Technology, Nebius, Nvidia, Oracle, Palantir and Caterpillar. The filing also showed QQQ put options at about 6% of the portfolio and cash rising to 12%.

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Duan Yongping

2026-08-10 13:15:43

Why Duan Yongping’s Pop Mart stake appeared to shrink: an options exercise, not necessarily a straightforward sale

Hong Kong Exchange disclosure data showed that Duan Yongping’s stake in Pop Mart fell from 7.65% to 5.55%, triggering a wave of commentary online. The source article argues that the change should not automatically be read as a simple decision to dump the stock after a weak few months. Instead, it says the more plausible explanation is that part of the position was removed from the account after a derivatives trade was exercised by the counterparty. To explain that view, the piece walks through two simplified options structures while ignoring fees and trading frictions. The first is selling put options to lock in a desired purchase price. In that setup, Duan either buys the shares at the target level if the stock falls, or keeps the premium if the option expires unexercised. The second structure, used when exchange limits prevent further put selling, is a combination of buying the stock and selling call options. That structure can create a similar economic result, but if the stock rises and the call buyer exercises, the shares are delivered away. On paper, that shows up as a sale. The article says this is the likely mechanism behind the disclosed reduction in Pop Mart holdings. It also notes that such tools are complex and, in the author’s view, not suitable for ordinary investors.

500

Duan Yongping

2026-08-05 13:53:20

Duan Yongping says Pop Mart stake reduction was driven by options expiry and assignment

Chinese investor Duan Yongping said on Aug. 5 that the latest reduction in his Pop Mart position was mainly the result of options mechanics rather than a straightforward decision to cut exposure. In a response posted on Xueqiu, Duan said the expiry of put options he had sold had a meaningful effect on his shareholding ratio. He also said part of his stock had been paired with covered call sales when the shares were originally bought, and those shares were later called away after the options were exercised. Duan added that he may continue using the same approach as long as the stock price stays within a certain range. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing disclosures showed that H&H International Investment, which he manages, saw its long position in Pop Mart International Group Ltd. fall from 7.65% to 5.55% on July 30, 2026. The filing said some Call options expired and were exercised on that date, requiring delivery of shares at an aggregate settlement price of about HK$162.50 and reducing physical holdings by about 8.9328 million shares. BlockBeats noted that Duan had said in April that “Pop Mart Insurance Company is open,” referring to his strategy of selling put options to collect premium and potentially buy shares at lower prices if the stock declines.

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