Unusual Options Activity in Marvell Technology, Inc. (MRVL)

Today, January 19, 2022, in the market capitalization-weighted index NASDAQ Global Select Market Composite (NasdaqGS), we saw unusual or noteworthy options trading volume and activity in Marvell, which opened at $78.34.

• There were 5,300 contracts traded on the $100 strike call option bought to open at the ask, dated for March 18th, 2022.
• These orders come just before Marvell pays out its dividend on January 26th, 2022.

Please note, trades that are struck through have been canceled for one reason or another.  Trades can be modified or nullified for a variety of reasons, and per the SEC:  for the maintenance of a fair and orderly market.

Exchanges can erroneously send more trades than were actually placed, especially during times of high volume.  This is a normal occurrence.

69.9% of the premium traded is in calls, with 67.4% as ask-side orders, with only 15.7% of the volume of options trades being in puts.  The put call ratio for Marvell is 0.394.

A tip from the flow:  The put/call ratio (P/C) is put volume divided by call volume.  Put/call ratio is important and can be an indication of sentiment shifting.  A P/C greater than .7 means more puts are being bought than calls, so the trend is getting bearish.  A P/C of .7 to .5 is becoming more bullish.

To view more information about MRVL's daily flow breakdown, click here to visit unusualwhales.com.

Unusual Options Activity in NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)

Again in the NasdaqGS, we saw unusual activity in NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA), which opened today at $260.79.

• There were 1,357 contracts traded on the $230 strike put option, bought to open at the ask, dated for January 28th, 2022.

A tip from the flow: Trades appended with a briefcase emoji can be intuited as bought or sold to open. This determination is made if the size of the trade was greater than the chain's open interest.  

Only trades that can be positively identified as being bought or sold to open will be marked as such (with the briefcase).  

Be mindful!  Trades without the briefcase emoji might still have been bought or sold to open!  You may also watch this video to see how to track these kinds of opportunities in the Unusual Whales flow.

Furthermore, just because these orders were indeed opened, it cannot be absolutely known whether these calls were sold to open or bought to open; however, they were traded at and in some cases above the ask, so assuming long, bought to open positions is often what intuition tells us.

53.90% of the premium traded at the $30,000 levels are in bullish bets, with a great majority of betting, however, being in put premiums. Furthermore, the $5,000 premium levels are in bullish premiums at 52.20%, with $3M more in put premium traded then in calls.

Reuters recently reported that “retail investors show signs of fatigue after last year's trading frenzy”.

To view more information about NVDA's flow breakdown, click here to visit unusualwhales.com.

Unusual Options Activity in Bausch Health Companies Inc. (BHC)

Finally, among the underlying components of the NYSE, we saw unusual or noteworthy options trading volume and activity in Bausch Health Companies Inc. (BHC), which opened today at $26.66.

• There were a series of orders on the $18 and $20 strike call options dated for February 18th, 2022.
• The open interest on these chains were between 7 and 57 open contracts as of today’s open, so this surge in volume is noteworthy and significant.
• It must be noted that these are not necessarily liquid chains with a wide bid-ask spread, sometimes more than a dollar wide, such as in the case of the first set of orders on the $18 calls; therefore, while these orders came in close to the bid, or even a mid price, it cannot be rightly ascertained if they were, in fact, bought or sold to open.

These orders come after Zacks Equity Research reported that Bausch Health “has announced that its eye care business, Bausch + Lomb Corporation is going public in the United States and Canada.”

As of this writing, Bausch Health has had 58,549 calls traded, which is 450% greater than its 30-day call average.

Of interest, these orders were marked as “floor”.  On the Unusual Whales blog is a report on floor traders' performance.  Floor traders work on the floor of an exchange.  When a floor trader executes a trade, exclusively for their own account, it must be reported on an exchange by the "floor" tag.

To view more information about BHC's flow breakdown, click here to visit unusualwhales.com.

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