Moderna closed at USD 236.50, up 4.51%.

Options flow showed a dominant bearish tilt despite the rally. The largest trade was a $11.70 million short call at the $250 strike expiring in 2027, supported by a smaller $371,300.00 bullish call spread for October 2026. With Moderna’s implied volatility in the 98.80th percentile, the session’s block activity leaned toward capping upside rather than chasing it.

>>>Start OPTIONS trading & earn up to SGD 200 in rewards!

Options Indicators

Moderna’s implied volatility is 112.59%, and with an IV percentile of 98.80%, current option volatility sits at a very elevated level, indicating that options are priced expensively relative to the stock’s own recent history. The IV/HV ratio of 1.31 further suggests implied volatility is running above realized volatility, showing that the options market is assigning a meaningful premium to expected future movement.

The Call/Put volume ratio is 1.44.

Large Trades

A call sale worth $11.70 million was the largest displayed trade, with 3,000 contracts sold at the $250.00 strike expiring on 2027-01-15. With the stock reference price at $236.50, this call was out of the money at execution, making it a bearish-to-neutral income trade that caps upside above the strike while expressing skepticism that Moderna will rally decisively through $250.00 by expiration. The sizeable premium collected suggests the trader was either leaning against a strong upside move or using the short call to monetize elevated forward upside expectations.

A bullish call spread opened for a net debit of $371,300.00 was the other displayed large trade, consisting of a long 1,139-lot $250.00 call and a short 1,139-lot $262.50 call, both expiring on 2026-10-23. Since both legs were out of the money versus the $236.50 reference stock price, the structure represents a defined-risk upside bet targeting a moderate advance rather than an explosive breakout. By paying a net debit, the trader was positioning for bullish appreciation into the $250.00-$262.50 zone while financing part of the long-call cost through the short higher-strike call, which points to a constructive but measured outlook.

Overall, the large-trade flow leans bearish. Although there was a clearly bullish defined-risk call spread and an additional smaller bullish put sale in the full tape, the dominant feature of the session was the much larger out-of-the-money call writing, which outweighed the upside expressions in both scale and conviction. Taken together, the block activity suggests the market is willing to price in some upside potential for Moderna, but institutional positioning appears more focused on limiting or fading a major rally than chasing one.

Strategy Reference

Given the elevated IV percentile, bearish-to-neutral traders may consider selling out-of-the-money calls with strikes above $270.00 or further to reduce assignment probability, while those seeking defined-risk directional exposure could use a put credit spread to collect premium without unlimited upside risk.