To The Moon

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

Thursday's meeting didn't just deliver one rate hike — it also signaled another hike later this year, which is about as hawkish as it gets. Maxing out expectations isn't necessarily bad — it means the market's next focus won't be on data beating expectations, but on what happens if data comes in below expectations.

But after the hawkish hike, the market didn't pull back significantly — tech stocks rebounded and led the gains. This is the current "three highs" environment: high growth, high inflation, high rates.

According to late-September tradition, the market should pull back. But looking at the directional bets from large block trades, bulls and bears are split roughly 50/50 — you could even say the bullish side feels slightly heavier. For example, SPY saw recent large bullish call buys at 780 $SPY 20260925 780.0 CALL$ and $SPY 20260930 780.0 CALL$ . Reading into this, it seems that after Triple Witching, not only will the market not fall — it will rebound back to previous highs.

On the other side, put opening expectations point to a pullback to the 120-day MA or even the 10-month MA — that would be the positioning consistent with a hawkish rate hike. But judging from actual market trends, the direction has been completely reversed. Why is that?

As discussed before, all market participants are counterparties to each other. Right now is precisely the market's consensus high-risk phase: high inflation + high rates, plus a hawkish hike, with VIX at low levels, and late September being a routine pullback period. In this situation, of course you'd be bearish — would you dare be bullish? Of course not. And then tech stocks led the rally.

Think about that carefully.

$NVIDIA(NVDA)$

This isn't to say you should bravely go contrarian when the market is unanimously bearish — you still need objective analysis, since high growth is also an objective reality.

Compute pricing continues to rise: NBIS announced a 20% across-the-board increase in GPU rental prices starting October 1, setting the stage for the October 5 launch of compute futures. Speaking of which — doesn't a 20% price hike count as significant inflation?

Most notably, CRWV's large bullish block trade $CRWV 20270319 110.0 CALL$ had a notional value of $14 million. Then the company announced a convertible senior notes offering, and the stock gapped up and sold off — now it's become a cautionary tale for large block trades.

NVIDIA's largest call opening was the October 9-expiry 215 Call $NVDA 20261009 215.0 CALL$ , with 17,000 contracts opened and over $10 million in notional value. This basically tells us tech stocks are unlikely to fall in late September.

$Intel(INTC)$

Intel's openings are mostly short-biased — after all, the stock has been putting on a "about to collapse" act, and both the call wall and put wall are clearly defined. 110 was a resistance level that seemed impossible to break — but it was broken today.

Wednesday's large call openings were mostly Sell Calls — selling the October-expiry 120 and 130 Calls $INTC 20261016 120.0 CALL$ $INTC 20261016 130.0 CALL$  . Whether today's surge will force those positions to close is unclear.

$SpaceX(SPCX)$

SPCX has a long-dated Sell Call $SPCX 20270319 185.0 CALL$ , with 22,000 contracts opened. The reason is unclear — it could be a Covered Call, or it could be from the camp that believes late September can't rally.

There's an interesting weekly combo: Sell Put 144 + Buy Call 167.4 $SPCX 20260918 144.0 PUT$ $SPCX 20260918 167.5 CALL$ . Betting on a sharp rally, but if it doesn't rally, there's no loss either — because the Sell Put offsets the cost of the Buy Call.

For a Sell Put, you can choose next week's expiry at 138$SPCX 20260925 138.0 PUT$.

$Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund(XLE)$

Although Trump hasn't publicly announced a deal, crude oil fell anyway. By October, oil may no longer continue rising: a large Sell Call block sold the October 16-expiry 67 Call $XLE 20261016 67.0 CALL$ .