Market Overview

Wall Street stocks ended mixed on Thursday (May 15), with gains in Cisco Systems following an upbeat forecast, while UnitedHealth tumbled after a report of a criminal investigation into the insurer.

Regarding the options market, a total volume of 53,435,104 contracts was traded, down 2% from the previous trading day.

Top 10 Option Volumes

Top 10: NVDA, TSLA, UNH, AAPL, VIX, AMZN, MSTR, PLTR, SMCI, AMD

Source: Tiger Trade App

UnitedHealth shares plunged 10.9% on Thursday after a Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. Department of Justice had begun a criminal investigation into the company for potential Medicare fraud.

There are 1.5 million UnitedHealth option contracts traded on Thursday, up 292% from the previous trading day. Put options account for 53% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $250 strike put option expiring May 16, with 54,671 contracts trading. UNH 20250516 250.0 PUT

Unusual Options Activity

Source: Market Chameleon

Coinbase shares closed down 7.2% on Thursday after two developments raised new questions about the company's controls and regulatory headaches.

First, the US crypto exchange disclosed that cyberattackers had stolen sensitive customer data and threatened to publish it unless the company paid a $20 million ransom. Then the New York Times reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission still has an open investigation into whether Coinbase misreported user data years ago.

There are 517.1K Coinbase option contracts traded on Thursday, up 56% from the previous trading day. Call options account for 59% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $240 strike put option expiring May 16, with 31,764 contracts trading. COIN 20250516 240.0 PUT

Walmart eased 0.5% on Thursday after the heavyweight retailer warned it would start raising prices later this month due to tariffs, even after its first-quarter U.S. comparable sales beat expectations.

There are 401.4K Walmart option contracts traded on Thursday, up 46% from the previous trading day. Call options account for 60% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $110 strike call option expiring June 20, with 29,911 contracts trading. WMT 20250620 110.0 CALL

Cisco said that its finance chief Scott Herren will retire from the company in July, and raised its annual results forecast, betting on steady demand from cloud customers for its networking equipment, driven by the artificial intelligence boom. The shares jumped 4.9% on Thursday.

There are 313.2K Cisco option contracts traded on Thursday, up 40% from the previous trading day. Call options account for 80% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $65 strike call option expiring May 16, with 30,388 contracts trading. CSCO 20250516 65.0 CALL

TOP 10 S&P 500 Bullish & Bearish

This report shows stocks with the highest volume of bullish and bearish activity by option delta volume, which converts option volume to an equivalent stock volume (bought or sold).

If we take the total positive option delta volume and subtract the total negative option delta volume, we will get the net imbalance. If the net imbalance is positive, there is more bullish pressure. If the net is negative, there is more bearish pressure.

Based on option delta volume, traders bought a net equivalent of 1,109,912 shares of Akamai stock. The largest bullish delta came from selling puts. The largest delta volume came from the 16-May-25 90 Put, with traders getting long 720,000 deltas on the single option contract. AKAM 20250516 90.0 PUT

Top 10 bullish stocks: AKAM, NVDA, PEP, NFLX, JPM, COP, NKE, HST, WBA, CSCO

Top 10 bearish stocks: MRK, UNH, PFE, AAPL, CVX, PLTR, GOOGL, INTC, AMD; C

Source: Market Chameleon

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