Market Overview

U.S. stocks sold off on Thursday as ongoing tariff jitters and a downbeat forecast from Walmart dampened investor risk appetite.

Regarding the options market, a total volume of 55,751,819 contracts was traded.

Top 10 Option Volumes

Top 10: Palantir, Nvidia, Tesla, Super Micro Computer, Alibaba, BP, Apple, CBOE Volatility Index, Intel, Microsoft

Investors continued to dump Palantir Technologies Inc. shares on Thursday, escalating concerns that the latest hot pick among retail traders could be fizzling out.

Shares of the mysterious technology and defense stock retreated more than 5% on Thursday, regaining some ground in afternoon trading. Still, that builds on Wednesday’s slide of around 10%, which came after shares touched an all-time high earlier in the day and marked the stock’s worst session since May.

There are 2.89 million Palantir Technologies Inc. option contracts traded on Thursday. Call options account for 50% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $100 strike put option expiring Feb. 21, with 140,008 contracts trading. $PLTR 20250221 100.0 PUT$

Alibaba's shares jumped 8% after it reported third-quarter revenues just above analysts' estimates and said it plans to invest more in e-commerce and AI.

"Alibaba delivered an inflection point quarter as the company's cloud business was much stronger than the Street and the Chinese stalwart's AI strategy is heading into its next gear of growth," Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said.

There are 1.48 million Alibaba option contracts traded on Thursday. Call options account for 69% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $140 strike call option expiring Feb. 21, with 85,240 contracts trading. $BABA 20250221 140.0 CALL$

Unusual Options Activity

Unity Software Inc. stock surged 30% on Thursday. CEO Matthew Bromberg emphasized Unity's strong Q4 performance, with revenue and adjusted EBITDA surpassing guidance. He highlighted the 15% year-over-year growth in subscription revenues and the 50% growth in industry revenue, which is Unity's fastest-growing subscription business.

There are 379.80K Unity Software Inc. option contracts traded on Thursday. Call options account for 76% of overall option trades. Particularly high volume was seen for the $26 strike call option expiring Feb 28, 2025, with 16,149 contracts trading. The $26 strike call option expiring Feb 28 surged 423% on Thursday. $U 20250228 26.0 CALL$

TOP Bullish & Bearish Single Stocks

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 sold a net equivalent of -2,083,620 shares of NVIDIA stock. The largest bearish delta came from selling calls. The largest delta volume came from the 21-Feb-25 Call, with traders getting short 597,993 deltas on the single option contract.

Top 10 bullish stocks: GlaxoSmithKline, Alibaba, Riot Platforms, Merck, Bilibili, Warner Bros. Discovery, Nebius, Intel, Nexgen Energy, BigBear.ai

Top 10 bearish stocks: Palantir, Nvidia, Tesla, AMD, Walmart, Microsoft, Vale, Carnival, Moderna, Valley National

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