NVDA options are the most popular contract among options traders by a longshot
All eyes are on Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) stock this week, as the annual GTC conference -- the company's biggest artificial intelligence (AI) and tech summit-- kicks off tomorrow. Ahead of the event, NVDA is 2.6% lower to trade at $118.47, succumbing to broader-market pressure as the Nasdaq remains entrenched in correction territory. Last year during GTC week though, the shares gained 7.4%, and that may be all call traders needed to hear.
Despite a 11% deficit year-to-date, Nvidia stock has remained popular among options traders, landing the top spot on Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White's list of stocks with the highest options volume in the past 10 days. In this period, over 36.3 million calls and 21.9 million puts were exchanged, numbers that almost double the number of Tesla (TSLA) options traded.
The weekly 3/14 120-strike call was the most popular in the last two weeks, while April and June 120-strike calls saw 100,000 contracts fly off the shelves on March 5, a sign of possible spread activity. On the charts, keep an eye on the stock's 320-day moving average, a trendline that tested and caught last week's pullback.
Now looks like an great time to weigh in with options. NVDA's Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 66% sits in the 17th percentile of its annual range, indicating implied volatilities are favorable for premium traders at the moment.