Any Other Trading Day in DiDi Global Inc. (DIDI)

On December 2nd, 2021,DiDi Global Inc. opened at $8.17.

Earlier in the day, at 11:38 EST, floor traders rolled their $7.5 strike put options contracts, dated for December 17th, 2021 to January 21st, 2022.

This would be a nominal operation and well within an expected move of someone rolling put options out to a later date in order to protect themselves from theta decay as well as to protect their underlying shares.

What would be noteworthy, however, was that throughout the day there were no orders that were traded in which the size of the order was greater than the open interest of the chain itself.

That was, until...

Somebody Always Knows

Then, one minute and twenty six seconds from close (15:58:34 EST), 15,500 contracts were traded.

The sizes of these orders were dramatic and over the open interest, which was actually zero on both chains.

Those chains were:

• The $12 strike call option, sold to open at the bid of $.2, of a bid-ask of $.01 - $2.22, dated for January 14th, 2022.
• The $12 strike put option, traded at the mid of $4.64, of a bid-ask of $2.61 - $6.65, and for the same date.
• If the $12 strike put option was bought to open, these two contracts together would be considered a synthetic short, a significantly bearish position.

However, there were an additional set of 15,500 contracts traded along with this set, whose volumes were not above the open interest:

• The $15 strike call option, traded at $.03, of a bid-ask of $.02 - $.03, dated for December 17th, 2021.
• The $15 strike put option, traded at $7.17, of a bid-ask of $6.35 - $9.15, for the same date.
• As seen, again, these options chains again suffered tremendous volatility, given their bid-ask spreads, and were traded around a mid price, meaning it will not be clarified until seeing tomorrow’s open interest whether or not these were closed or opened.

Therefore, taking all of these options data into account, the $15 strike contracts traded on the chains whose open interests were higher than the volumes cannot be decisively interpreted until we look further back:

As seen, these contracts were more definitively traded at their bids and asks:

• the $15 strike call was sold at the of $.08 of a bid-ask of $.08 - $0.12
• and the $15 strike put opened above the ask at $8.14 of a bid-ask of $6.75 - $7.10, which is a clear indication these contracts were traded to open, as the trader was willing to pay more than the ask to enter them.

As presented, following the Unusual Whales flow tool allows for understanding all of the options data with a few simple steps of investigation.

This is always the danger in chasing “unusual activity”, insomuch that volumes greater than open interest are never a clear indication of direction.

However, the fact remains that the opened orders came in under two minutes before the close, as significant as they were, and just ahead of the news that…

After Market Close - News Revealed $DIDI Will Be Delisting in the U.S.

Doubly confirmed via Bloomberg that $DIDI has begun preparations to delist in the U.S. and will start work on a Hong Kong share sale, the company announced on its Weibo account.

Following the Flow in DiDi Global Inc. (DIDI)

60.1% of the premium traded at these premium levels are in bullish bets, with 60.9% as bid-side orders, and 96.9% are in put premiums.

It might be intuited, in which case, that a majority of puts were being sold, a bullish sentiment overall on the day for DIDI.

The primary bullish expiration traded was the December 17th, 2021 chain, with the primary bearish expiration being the January 14th, 2022; both of these would corroborate with the aforementioned unusual activity.

As seen, the most significantly bet upon strike was still the $15 strike, with a majority of bullish betting; however the $12 strikes were the most bearish, again due to the options reported above.

Somebody Always Knows

Following the Unusual Whales Flow and Alerts are powerful because they allow we as retail traders to investigate the options activity during the day, in real time, to gain insight on how other traders are using options contracts to position themselves--and to see insiders trading on privileged knowledge before it was released to the public.

As of this writing (approximately 20:51 EST), DiDi Global Inc. (DIDI) was trading at $7.78.