Market Overview

Wall Street ended sharply lower on Thursday (Mar. 13) and the S&P 500 confirmed it is in a correction after cool inflation data was overshadowed by fears that the escalating tariff war being waged by the United States against some of its biggest trading partners could reignite inflation and tip the economy into recession.

Regarding the options market, a total volume of 53,422,306 contracts was traded, up 8% from the previous trading day.

Top 10 Option Volumes

Top 10: NVDA, TSLA, AAPL, INTC, VIX, AMZN, PLTR, MSTR, META, AMD

Source: Tiger Trade App

Intel shares jumped 14.6% on Thursday after the chipmaker appointed industry veteran Lip-Bu Tan as its chief executive officer.

There are 1.29 million Intel option contracts traded on Thursday, up 240% from the previous trading day. Call options account for 67% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $25 strike call option expiring March 21, with 59,779 contracts trading. INTC 20250321 25.0 CALL

Unusual Options Activity

Source: Market Chameleon

As panic intensifies, U.S. stocks plunge while gold and silver surge, drawing attention to related ETFs on Thursday ,including iShares Silver Trust (SLV) and SPDR Gold Shares (GLD).

There are 586.7K iShares Silver Trust option contracts traded on Thursday, up 88% from the previous trading day. Call options account for 76% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $34 strike call option expiring April 17, with 34,134 contracts trading. SLV 20250417 34.0 CALL

There are 439K SPDR Gold Shares option contracts traded on Thursday, up 28% from the previous trading day. Call options account for 69% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $390 strike call option expiring December 19, with 19,246 contracts trading. GLD 20251219 390.0 CALL

TOP 10 S&P 500 Bullish & Bearish

This report shows stocks with the highest volume of bullish and bearish activity by option delta volume, which converts option volume to an equivalent stock volume (bought or sold).

If we take the total positive option delta volume and subtract the total negative option delta volume, we will get the net imbalance. If the net imbalance is positive, there is more bullish pressure. If the net is negative, there is more bearish pressure.

Based on option delta volume, traders bought a net equivalent of 4,442,619 shares of Intel stock. The largest bullish delta came from buying calls. The largest delta volume came from the 14-Mar-25 Call, with traders getting long 1,718,258 deltas on the single option contract.

Top 10 bullish stocks: INTC, NVDA, BAC, NEM, LUV, KO, DELL, WBD, MO, CSCO

Top 10 bearish stocks: F, AAPL, TSLA, AMZN, WMT, AMD, META, PFE, GOOGL; ADBE

Source: Market Chameleon

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