IGV : 50,000 Contracts of 90 Puts Opened!

$SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$

The news came out the day before yesterday that Anthropic is planning an IPO in September or early October. That would be right after Triple Witching on 9/18 — which roughly translates to bullish after Triple Witching. The bullish playbook is probably similar to before: continue squeezing the shorts, with the broader market dipping first then rallying.

Oh, SPY might not drop, but some sectors will. IGV opened 50,000 contracts of the September 18-expiry 90 put$IGV 20261218 90.0 PUT$ — a buy-side bearish bet with a notional value of approximately $13.5 million. On the same day, PLTR opened 28,000 contracts of the 140 put $PLTR 20261218 140.0 PUT$ — direction unclear. Either way, the software sector is due for another pullback. SPY will likely retrace to the 10-day MA at 760.

$NVIDIA(NVDA)$

A bearish spread block trade opened: buying the 220 put $NVDA 20261016 220.0 PUT$ and selling the 180 put $NVDA 20261016 180.0 PUT$ .

Based on Triple Witching open interest data, a pullback to 200 for NVIDIA looks appropriate. In other words, it's not just IGV that will pull back — SMH is likely to pull back as well.

$SpaceX(SPCX)$

A block trade opened with 5,056 contracts of the 180 call $SPCX 20261016 180.0 CALL$ . However, I think it will stall around 150 for a while.

$Intel(INTC)$

Intel plans to raise $15 billion at a price of $95, but due to oversubscription, it has increased the offering to $20 billion — even the CEO and his relatives bought 12 million shares. Long-term bullish.

However, in the short term, the stock is likely to remain in a wide consolidation range, and buying calls will lose leverage. So someone put together a combo: selling the 70 put $INTC 20270115 70.0 PUT$ and buying the 150 call $INTC 20270115 150.0 CALL$ . After hedging at Wednesday's price, the call effectively costs only $1. But after seeing this combo, I feel even more that the stock won't rally in the short term. Typically, traders who use this structure know the trend is sideways and are just betting on a small-probability catalyst — this combo essentially acts as a lower-margin, higher-leverage substitute for the underlying stock.

$SK hynix(SKHY)$

Options activity continues to point toward range-bound oscillation below 160. EWY needs to be watched to see if it can hold above the 20-day MA.

$SPDR Gold ETF(GLD)$

After the recent sharp rally, it may need to consolidate around 400. A block trade sold the September-expiry 440 call $GLD 20260918 440.0 CALL$ .