CurryOption

CurryOption

There's no bad news heard about $Lumentum(LITE.US)'s fundamentals. The current stock price movement looks more like a pullback after a rally.

The implied volatility in the top-left chart shows a relatively low earnings peak, and the baseline value before and after earnings is in a gradual downtrend.

The stock price currently seems to show signs of forming a top. If the implied volatility maintains this declining baseline, the stock price will definitely enter a consolidation phase. If implied volatility can rebound similarly to early March next week, then there's still some hope for the stock price.

The top-right chart shows the recent volatility spread, which hit its deepest negative value recently on 05/28. Call options once sparked a rally, but bounced back above the zero line within one trading day.

Monday and Tuesday's trading are crucial. If trading over the next two days can clearly return to negative values, then the one-month downtrend in the volatility spread has a chance to continue.

The worst-case scenario is that in the upcoming trading sessions, volatility continues to decline slightly with small oscillations, and the volatility spread also remains above the zero line. This pattern would declare the end of the stock price's upward movement.

The bottom-left chart is a zoom-in of the volatility trend. Both the green dashed line (Calls) and red dashed line (Puts) have fallen to relatively low levels since the beginning of the year.

The bottom-right chart shows the single-day options position change on Friday last week. Bullish and bearish bets were about even, with bearish option open interest for next Friday (06/05) even slightly stronger. If this situation continues, we are likely to see the volatility spread return above the zero line.

Conclusion:

Although the decline in volatility and the return of the volatility spread above the zero line (Put-dominated) effectively declare the end of a rally, this is also a necessary incubation condition for the next rise. Those who are very bullish on $Lumentum(LITE.US)'s fundamentals can look to add long positions at points of particularly low volatility before the next earnings report. That time hasn't come yet. Has the rally already ended? We'll need to watch for another two or three trading days.

$IBM(IBM.US)'s stock price has risen 38% in the last 11 trading days, mainly due to significant positive news in the quantum computing field, coupled with funding support from the Trump administration, which has triggered strong buying in the market.

We can trace back from options data to see that some funds had already entered the market before the news was released.

IBM announced that it will invest over $10 billion in the next five years to develop quantum computing, with the goal of building a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum system by 2029. This includes R&D, manufacturing, acquisitions, and collaborations.

At the same time, the U.S. Department of Commerce allocated $2 billion through the CHIPS and Science Act to nine quantum companies, with IBM receiving the largest single grant of $1 billion to establish the first "pure-play quantum wafer fab" in the U.S. in Albany, New York.

$IBM(IBM.US)'s stock price has risen sharply recently. From the top-left chart, we can see implied volatility rising sharply, with the stock price (white dotted line) climbing almost vertically, and implied volatility catching up quickly, though slightly lagging.

Meanwhile, the top-right chart shows the volatility spread trend over the past two years. The current volatility spread is deeply negative, indicating that market trading is clearly dominated by momentum-driven bullish buying. Looking back at the data from the past two years, the last time it was this negative was in mid-2024, after which a six-month uptrend followed.

Now the volatility spread is extremely negative, and the current pattern, in terms of both depth and breadth, is unprecedented.

$IBM(IBM.US) is experiencing a rare bullish atmosphere in recent years.

The bottom-left chart shows the change in options positions during a single trading day on Friday. The enthusiasm for opening bullish options positions was overwhelmingly stronger than for bearish options.

The bottom-right chart shows the daily change in $IBM(IBM.US)'s bullish options positions since early April. In this heatmap, we can see an abnormally active bullish options opening signal as early as 05/08, with the strike price heavily concentrated at $260. 05/08 was not the recent bottom of the stock price; the lowest point in the past year occurred on 05/13.

The background of the initial position building on 05/08 was that the stock price was still in a significant downtrend. The continuous large-scale entry of $260 strike price positions was already unusual. After the $260 positions were built, a few days later (05/13), the stock price began to rise from the bottom. The $260 strike price bullish options gradually exited by taking profits, until 05/22 when large-scale bullish options positions emerged due to news catalysts, and the $260 options still chose to close their positions at that time.

Below are two key time nodes:

May 21st → CHIPS Act + Anderon quantum wafer fab news officially released (first wave of positive news)

May 28th → IBM's $10 billion quantum investment + Project Lightwell news officially released (second wave, stronger catalyst)

On 05/22, a large number of bullish options positions appeared, continuing until 05/29 when the scale of position building intensified further, completely driven by news-led bullish buying. During this sharp rise, options positions with strike prices set at $260 were usually one step ahead and conservatively liquidated in batches during the uptrend to lock in profits early.

Frankly speaking, the above two policy-level positive developments are certainly very beneficial for $IBM(IBM.US). However, for these things to translate into actual revenue is a distant future.

Will the stock price rise further?

Of course, it's possible. After all, the potential for more support from the Trump administration cannot be ignored. But this is a completely different logic from the stock price rise of $Micron Tech(MU.US), $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US), $NVIDIA(NVDA.US), which is based on actual revenue backing.

$Nokia Oyj(NOK.US) I no longer highlight $Nokia Oyj(NOK.US)'s low implied volatility rank now, because that would cause misunderstanding. In fact, if you only started looking at its implied volatility in March this year, you would judge the current volatility to be very high. It only reached the peak volatility (110%) on 05/26. However, if you include the volatility jitter caused by liquidity factors earlier, you would misjudge the current volatility as seemingly very low.

The top-right chart shows the maximum pain point price trend for the most recent one-month options. Although $Nokia Oyj(NOK.US)'s stock price has been rising continuously, the price drop in the last two days has allowed the maximum pain point to catch up. 06/18 belongs to the monthly options, which have already accumulated over 200,000 contracts in open interest, making it relatively more difficult to move, but it can still be seen to have been continuously rising over this month. These are patterns relatively favorable for subsequent stock price increases.

The bottom-left chart is the single-day open interest change chart for $Nokia Oyj(NOK.US) after two consecutive days of price decline. It can be seen that the opening of call options is still relatively active. Surprisingly, options expiring in 85 days even saw new call open interest of 16,000 contracts at a strike price of $18. Since the Put/Call volatility spread has fallen below the zero line, the positions should be primarily established by buying pressure. The bottom-right chart is the open interest change chart for call options from early April to the present. This heatmap shows that the most actively traded call options are distributed at strike prices of $16~$17. It wasn't until yesterday that a large amount of open interest appeared at the $18 strike. The stock price only experienced a slight adjustment, which does not affect the confidence of market participants. Call option buying on the rise is still active, and the distribution of strike prices has actually moved upwards.

Next week, I'm taking my parents on an 11-day trip to Japan, and I'm a bit worried that my daily options data analysis output might be affected. I'll bring my laptop and will try my best to keep posting analysis articles every day after returning to the hotel in the evening.

$Microsoft(MSFT.US) In 2026, Microsoft continued its decline from 2025. With the rise of the Claude model launched by Anthropic this year, Microsoft's stock price fell more sharply this year, dropping from the beginning of the year to early April, hitting a two-year low of around 355.
The top-left chart shows the long-term volatility trend. It can be observed that at the end of last year, the decline in stock price also drove down volatility, with a slow decline accompanied by a decrease in trading activity.
However, after the earnings report at the beginning of the year, a new baseline was established. Subsequently, even as the stock price fell to early April, volatility did not decrease.
Although the decline in $Microsoft(MSFT.US) started last November, for the same downward wave, market participants had two different trading sentiments.
Entering 2026, the continuous decline has instead kept implied volatility at a higher baseline (~25%). I believe that if the stock price falls below $425, it might trigger some holders to consider buying insurance for a deeper decline (buy put), while others might think it's time to enter the market and buy call options because Microsoft is already oversold.
Both sentiments lead to a continued decline in the stock price but push implied volatility higher.
Until early April, the capital judging that $Microsoft(MSFT.US) was oversold gradually became mainstream. Therefore, you can see in the top-right chart that the short-term Put/Call volatility spread followed a gentle downward trend, even briefly falling below the zero line recently.
The rebound in $Microsoft(MSFT.US) in early April lacked sustained momentum. After the earnings report, the stock price stagnated and fluctuated at this level, while the overall implied volatility fell back to the pre-earnings baseline.
Interestingly, although overall volatility decreased, the buying pressure for call options still outweighed that for put options. Therefore, the Put/Call volatility spread did not return to the past pattern dominated by put options.
The bottom-left chart shows the daily change in $Microsoft(MSFT.US) option positions during last Friday's trading session. At this time, under conditions of low volatility, we can observe that call options were actively opened across all options, with a wave of capital very confidently bullish. In contrast, the opening of put options can only be described as sporadic.
The bottom-right chart shows the daily change in $Microsoft(MSFT.US) call option positions since March. Since May 18th, this unusual bullish buying sentiment has been continuously building call positions daily, with strike prices ranging from $420 to $440, until May 22nd when even more aggressive position opening occurred. Furthermore, judging from the volatility spread trend in the top-right chart, these long positions were dominated by buying, not by long-term holders selling covered calls.

On 05/20, $Micron Tech(MU.US)'s CEO Sanjay Mehrotra publicly emphasized that "the company's balance sheet has never been stronger," reiterating that the demand for AI memory is a structural, long-term trend, which spurred a pre-market stock price surge of about 5%. Donald Trump's fundamental stance on the US controlling advanced manufacturing technology remains unchanged. As the most advanced domestic memory chip manufacturer in the US, it's really hard to find even a sliver of cause for concern. But the stock price has already surged significantly, so what is the current market state?

The top-right chart shows the short-term Put/Call volatility spread trend. The current trading sentiment has completely eased from the extreme, overwhelmingly bullish atmosphere.

The volatility spread has returned to the zero line and above. Short-term options even show a value of +7.8%, beginning to approach the long-term benchmark (Put volatility is 10% higher).

I believe the market won't return to the completely bullish state seen on 05/11 anytime soon, as such a state has only occurred twice in the past year. Perhaps the next occurrence will be in the second half of the year.

The bottom-right chart plots the Put and Call volatilities separately over the past year. The green line is Call (bullish), and the red line is Put (bearish). Although both volatilities have declined significantly, they haven't yet returned to the pre-earnings benchmark, so we estimate they will continue to fall.

Approaching 60% is considered a low volatility position unaffected by earnings reports.

The top-left chart is a correlation analysis between stock returns and volatility. I've mentioned before that every complete upward wave experiences an alternation from strong negative correlation to strong positive correlation.

This wave started rising in April, with a correlation coefficient of -0.5 at the time, and the red line (Put) showed an even more negative correlation. After this round of increase, the stock price formed a head-and-shoulders pattern, while the correlation coefficient also completed a more distinct head-and-shoulders pattern at a strong positive correlation (+0.75).

Once the correlation coefficient shifts from negative to positive, it often signals the end of a wave and a transition to range-bound consolidation. Historical data suggests a high probability of a temporary pause, though not necessarily a decline.

The bottom-left chart is the daily position change chart. This chart shows that only very near-term options have new bullish opening positions. The entire chart indicates that bearish option opening is more active. This is a completely different situation compared to the all-in bullish bets seen recently.

$iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF(IBIT.US) Because the implied volatility of IBIT (BTC ETF) is so low that it piqued my curiosity, I couldn't help but take a closer look at its trading data.

I'm quite old-fashioned; I hold cryptocurrencies but don't trade them, treating them simply as part of my asset allocation. Moreover, I still firmly believe in Bitcoin's four-year bull-bear cycle.

This year should, in theory, be a bear market year. Typically, the third and fourth quarters of a bear market year are the time to look for buying opportunities.

This time is no exception for me, so for the entire first half of 2026, I've paid almost no attention to cryptocurrencies. My only remaining connection to them is the few hundred shares of $Strategy(MSTR.US) and $Coinbase(COIN.US) in my account.

Depending on the situation in the second half of this year, I might buy some cryptocurrencies and then wait two years before paying attention again.

However, the recent I.V. rank of $iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF(IBIT.US) is just too low. Let's see what's going on with its data?

First, look at the top-left chart. This shows the overall implied volatility trend over a two-year period. You can see that since February 10th of this year, when Bitcoin had its second major plunge, the implied volatility spiked, forming a new starting point for a volatility wave.

From February 10th to today, May 22nd, the implied volatility of $iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF(IBIT.US) has continued to decline. Even though the real-time stock price (BTC price) later showed a pattern of gradual increase, $iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF(IBIT.US)'s volatility has kept falling relentlessly.

The last time it was at such a low level was around the end of August last year.

The troubling part is that at that time, when the implied volatility was this low, it coincided with a peak in Bitcoin's price.

If you look at this two-year chart, you'll find that relative lows in implied volatility often correspond to price tops. Conversely, highs in implied volatility often correspond to local price bottoms.

Now, with $iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF(IBIT.US)'s volatility at a very low level, don't you think that's scary?

The top-right chart shows the two-year Put/Call volatility spread. We can see that the local highs in volatility observed in the top-right chart usually correspond to local highs in put option volatility. The two align perfectly.

So, if any friends want to build a Bitcoin position in the second half of the year like I do, how should they look at it?

At the very least, we need to wait until put option volatility significantly surpasses call option volatility.

But for such a scenario to occur, unsurprisingly, it would require a panic-inducing drop. Can we overextrapolate from this and assume there will be another drop in the second half of the year?

That would be a bit of a stretch. This data isn't predictive; it merely describes the current state! Whether there will be a panic-driven drop in the second half of the year, neither the data nor I can predict. But if such a state does appear, it would be a great entry opportunity with a favorable risk-reward ratio.

The bottom-left chart shows recent volatility trends. This chart displays four different option expiration dates, from near to far, showing a highly consistent volatility trend. Volatility is declining consistently from near-term to long-term, even as the stock price shows a pattern of gradual increase. Stock price and volatility show a negative correlation!

Finally, let's look at the bottom-right chart. This is the options position change chart from yesterday's trading. Although call option opening was relatively active, these new positions were not formed by very aggressive chasing buying, as the Put/Call volatility spread is currently even above the zero line.

Analyzing the correlation strength between stock price and volatility is a relatively uncommon analysis, so I specifically wrote this article for educational purposes. In this article, we'll discuss this chart from a beginner's perspective: Below is a development script using historical option chain data, taking $Tesla(TSLA.US) as an example, the correlation coefficient between stock price return and implied volatility change. There are only two variables, defined as follows: Stock equity (return): The simple return rate of the closing price over the next two trading days. Implied volatility change: The implied volatility of options with DTE=14 days...

After Amazon's earnings report, $Amazon(AMZN.US)'s stock price retreated, and its implied volatility also dropped to a new low for the year. From the two-year volatility trend chart in the top-left graph, it can be seen that during the stock price's pullback from the high, the implied volatility gradually rose from the bottom, showing a relatively healthy negative correlation.

The top-right graph shows the two-year trend of the Put/Call volatility difference. The current difference is above the zero line, which is also the baseline value for the past two years.

In this volatility difference chart, three dates are worth noting: 2024/08/15, 2025/04/04, and 2026/03/05.

Around these three dates, you can see the brick-red lines all show a raised head pattern, which corresponds to the local lows of the stock price. $Amazon(AMZN.US) has this commonality: when the put volatility is significantly higher than the call volatility and persists for a period, it often indicates a local low in the stock price.

The bottom-right graph shows options expiring within the next month. The maximum pain point price has caught up with the stock price, making the recent $Amazon(AMZN.US) pullback worthwhile. The maximum pain point price catching up with the stock price helps initiate a new round of upward movement.

In the position accumulation chart, I found that for options expiring on 06/05, there is an in-the-money put option with a size of about 7,000 contracts, with a strike price likely at $285.

I checked that the previous high of the stock price was only $278.5. In other words, these 7,000 contracts were in-the-money puts when initially established. The liquidity of in-the-money options is slightly worse, and with a size of 7,000 contracts, this operation is very unusual and extremely rare.

Of course, buying in-the-money puts can be interpreted superficially as a short position with lower leverage. Since the initial strike price is set in-the-money, the probability of the position expiring worthless due to unfavorable price movement is less than 50%. It's a slightly more conservative shorting operation.

The above view assumes that these 7,000 contracts were primarily formed by buyers.

Let's look at the bottom-right graph again. This heat map shows the daily position changes for put options recently.

If we focus on the $285 strike price (the far-left edge of the chart) and track from late March to today, there were only two days with significant put option accumulation: 05/08 and 05/19, with the accumulation on 05/19 being particularly intense (thousands of contracts).

05/19 happened to be the worst trading day forming the recent stock price low ($255). I speculate that during trading on that day, traders or trading algorithms saw signs of further accelerated decline in the stock price, so they positioned in-the-money puts for a lower-leverage short.

The above are all my speculations based on stock price and options trading data. Whether buying or selling, having such liquidity (without disturbing implied volatility) actually indicates that the forces on both sides are not significantly different.

$Tesla(TSLA.US) Tesla's volatility has already dropped back to the baseline. The chart on the bottom right shows the implied volatility of Puts and Calls separately over the past year. Last time we observed that the green line (Calls) has now fallen back to the upper edge of past call option volatility, while the red line (Puts) sits at the lower edge of past put option volatility. In other words, although overall volatility has returned to the baseline, call options are still significantly stronger. From the top left chart, we can see the Put/Call volatility spread remains below the zero line, indicating the buying pressure for call option premiums is still relatively strong. Is this related to the clarification of SpaceX's IPO timeline? The top right chart shows recent implied volatility. This chart indicates that options expiring this Friday have particularly strong volatility. Options with other expiration dates are still flat after the stock price formed a top, but the volatility for options expiring on 05/22 has already returned to the highs seen when the stock price was $440. This is unusual because SpaceX's official listing is in early June. There's no reason for this week's options to be dancing around while the options for the listing week are lying flat. I don't understand why this is happening. Could it be that people are expecting some news about SpaceX and Tesla collaboration or a merger to be announced this week? The bottom left chart is the daily position change chart. Options for this week and the next two weeks show a clear trend dominated by call options. However, options expiring on 06/05, which is close to the SpaceX listing date, saw significant call option closing. A total of nearly 20,000 contracts, specifically the 06/05 long positions with a strike price of 475, were closed out during yesterday's trading session. I also don't understand why they wouldn't hold on to wait for the result (SpaceX IPO)? Overall implied volatility has declined, suggesting a 'place your bets and step away' sentiment. But I don't understand why this week's implied volatility has returned to previous highs? And I also don't understand why, if people are so sure about the SpaceX-related theme and have placed their bets, some are choosing to close their positions now?

[Implied Volatility Rank, Cross-Security Comparison]

$Marvell Tech(MRVL.US) remains at the top, still at rank=100.

$Salesforce(CRM.US) has shown strong stock price performance recently, with its I.V. rank rising to 88.

$AMD(AMD.US) / $Micron Tech(MU.US) remain high at 77.

$Intel(INTC.US) is relatively high at 75.

Stocks with particularly low Volatility Rank:

$iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF(IBIT.US) is down to only 8, completely ignored. $Nokia Oyj(NOK.US)'s stock price has surged strongly, but its rank is only 12. $Cipher Digital(CIFR.US), $Amazon(AMZN.US), and $iShares iBoxx HY Corp Bd(HYG.US).

$Alphabet - C(GOOG.US) has been really busy lately. I originally had no plan to post before the market opened today, but I suddenly remembered that the Google I/O conference is happening this week. I suddenly felt it necessary to take a look at $Alphabet - C(GOOG.US)'s data before the market opens on Monday.

When I look at the top-left chart, the two-year implied volatility, I think the current volatility is underestimated.

This Google I/O conference should be considered an event on par with an earnings report. Besides some hardware product announcements, Google is highly likely to introduce the next generation of Gemini and might even add some AI products at the Google I/O conference.

Now, among the three AI giants, no one permanently holds a dominant, overwhelming lead. Every time a new model is released, regardless of its benchmark ranking, there are always some features that can capture media attention and investor focus.

The top-left chart shows that $Alphabet - C(GOOG.US)'s implied volatility is still clearly at the pre-earnings baseline level, which I believe is an underestimate. In this state, if you are on the options selling side, you will bear event risk.

The top-right chart doesn't have new information. Because since the earnings report, the long positions in the tech sector haven't shown significant signs of retreating, so the Put/Call volatility spread remains near the zero line.

The interesting one is the bottom-left chart. In last Friday's trading, there were a large number of call option bets for mid-July, all bought out-of-the-money with a total volume exceeding ten thousand contracts. This is an abnormally bullish bet, but because the duration is as long as two months, it doesn't necessarily seem to be a bet specifically on the Google I/O conference.

The bottom-right chart is the cumulative position distribution for end-of-May options. At the maximum pain point price of 370, there happens to be a massive put option. Since this put option is still out-of-the-money, the maximum pain point price is unrelated to it. However, if the stock price falls, the strike price of 370 will definitely be a strong support level in the downward direction.

[Implied Volatility Rank, Cross-Asset Comparison]

$Marvell Tech(MRVL.US) slightly decreased from 100 to 97.

$Micron Tech(MU.US) dropped significantly to 75. $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) slightly decreased to 80.

$Intel(INTC.US) cooled down rapidly to 61, almost back to the yellow light.

Particularly low ones are: $MAZN, $iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF(IBIT.US), $Bit Digital(BTBT.US), $Cipher Digital(CIFR.US), $Netflix(NFLX.US), $Palantir Tech(PLTR.US) and $iShares iBoxx HY Corp Bd(HYG.US).

Over the weekend, I completed three articles, all on the same topic: the correlation coefficient between stock returns and changes in implied volatility. This is the first introductory article, which details the variable definitions and calculation methods. Using $Tesla(TSLA.US) as an example, it demonstrates how the correlation coefficient can serve as a reference for judging stock price bottoms. The underlying logic is that during the mid-to-later stages of a stock's wave-like decline, it often triggers panic among market participants, leading to irrational buying of put options at higher prices.

$Echostar(SATS.US) This is the first time I've looked at $Echostar(SATS.US) data. It was mentioned twice on my feed before, but because trading data for this type of newly popular stock is usually harder to analyze, I put it off until today.
Although $Echostar(SATS.US) is a hot stock in the spotlight, looking at the two-year implied volatility trend in the top-left chart, we can see that since around February this year, after approaching a new, higher baseline, it has generally oscillated around this baseline (~60%). Even the sharp stock price rise since late April hasn't helped lift implied volatility.
Options trading isn't very active. Looking at the top-right chart, which shows the two-year Put/Call volatility spread, we can see recent spreads are similar to the lows of last December or October, indicating that confidence in the bullish side is still being injected during the stock price rise. Implied volatility hasn't increased significantly, but call option trading is still relatively popular.
Surprisingly, the bottom-left chart shows a very large number of put option positions opened, and they are opened at very out-of-the-money levels (possibly at the $95 or $100 integer levels). There are also around two thousand put option positions opened near at-the-money levels, with a more ordinary volume.
The momentum of chasing the rally may have seen a turning point in last Friday's trading, as last Friday's position changes showed a rather lukewarm willingness to place bullish bets.
The bottom-right chart plots out-of-the-money call/put options separately over the past year. Even though the stock price has risen significantly recently, breaking through the upper resistance level, the option volatility hasn't changed much. Both the green dotted line (Call) and the red dotted line (Put) seem to have only minor ripples.
Why is options trading so calm? We'll have to wait three or four days to see how the data changes before it becomes clear.

$NVIDIA(NVDA.US) Friday's systemic factors (a sharp rise in U.S. Treasury bond yields) led to significant declines in many technology stocks. $NVIDIA(NVDA.US)'s stock price fell 4.42% in a single day. It's impossible to say such a drop had no impact at all; from the data, we can see its effect on bullish confidence.

The top-right chart shows the recent trend of the Put/Call volatility difference. This chart reveals that during Friday's trading, the volatility difference clearly turned and moved closer to the zero line.

I don't believe this will become a trend; it will only be a local fluctuation. Observing this chart, you can see that since early April, the $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) volatility difference has maintained a state of continuous tilt towards call options. Such a trend is not easily reversed.

Now look at the bottom-left chart; let's see what the actual operations of options traders were in Friday's single trading day.

In the bottom-left chart, we can see over 60,000 options contracts actively closed their positions before the close ahead of the 05/15 expiration. Where did these 60,000+ contracts go?

Looking at the options expiring on 05/22, there are over 70,000 new positions added. Combined with only limited fluctuations in implied volatility, we have reason to believe that earlier bullish investors are taking their current profits (from 05/15 options) and continuing to bet on a rise during the earnings week.

Looking at all options expiring within a month, no significant new short positions are visible.

Currently, for options expiring next Friday (dte=7), implied volatility has reached 69.9%, and call options are dominant (bottom-right chart).

Finally, we must pay attention to the pattern of the cumulative position distribution chart for options expiring next Friday. The top-left chart shows the current max pain price at $205, while the current stock price has already risen to $225. My previous tutorial on the max pain price reminded that the max pain price is determined by the distribution of in-the-money option positions. If you look at the red bars to the right of the vertical green dotted line and the green bars to the left, you will notice the disparity in position size. Whether the current max pain price can move now is entirely determined by the positions of the call options on the left side. Someone needs to close their positions and exit, or the stock price needs to fall to shorten the gap between the two prices.

After Microsoft's earnings report, the implied volatility directly returned to the pre-earnings benchmark level in a single day (top-left chart), which is a very common behavior. However, what is puzzling is that perhaps due to the bullish enthusiasm in other tech stocks, the Put/Call volatility spread for $Microsoft(MSFT.US) (top-right chart) has consistently shown a lack of interest in building positions for put options, with the focus always on call options. $Microsoft(MSFT.US)'s stock price has been consolidating weakly for some time, but the bulls have not given up. You can see in the top-right chart that since April 10th, the volatility spread has been closer to the zero line than the usual benchmark. In the last three trading days, even options expiring on May 15th have a volatility spread below the zero line. The market participants' enthusiasm for call options can also be seen in the bottom-left chart, the single-day position change chart, which shows a large number of call options, regardless of expiration date, actively opening new positions across a wide range of strike prices. If we look at the cumulative position distribution chart for this Friday's expiration, we can see that the number of green bars representing call options is significantly higher than the red bars representing put options. Although the maximum pain point price is close to the stock price, the accumulated volume of call options in the upward direction is not to be underestimated. These active bullish forces have become unusually firm after the earnings report, and the real reason is puzzling.