CurryOption

$MRVL recently had a piece of negative news that I believe will have no substantial impact. On 06/11, the company announced a CFO transition: the current CFO Willem Meintjes will step down. The latest update on 06/15: Meintjes filed Form 144, planning to sell approximately 207,000 shares (nearly 48% of his holdings), amounting to about $60.1M.

Compared to $MRVL's daily trading volume of tens of millions of shares, 200,000 shares are truly insignificant, and I believe it will not affect the stock price at all.

The top-left chart shows the two-year implied volatility trend. After the last earnings report, volatility returned to the baseline, with only a very brief dip before immediately rising back near the earnings peak. However, it cannot be said that it did not fall back to the baseline, because since last December, the volatility baseline has risen significantly, especially after mid-March, the baseline seems to have risen parabolically along with the stock price.
Perhaps the current volatility has already returned to the baseline, but the baseline itself has now risen to a height of 100%.

The top-right chart shows the two-year Put/Call volatility skew. Before the most recent earnings report, there was also a trend of active bullish bets. Although after the earnings report, the volatility skew oscillated with the high stock price and has returned near the zero line, and the bullish momentum has largely dissipated.
Looking at the bottom-left chart, this is the short-term Put/Call volatility skew trend. From the active bullish bets in early June, it once turned back to buying put options due to the sharp stock price drop. Now it is gradually tilting back towards call options.
The bottom-right chart is the options open interest change chart. Recently, there have been over 20,000 new call options, and slightly further out (dte=67 days), there have also been 3,000 new in-the-money call options. These new options are mainly buy-side, indicating active bullish sentiment among market participants.

Summary: Volatility remains on a steeply rising parabolic trajectory, and market participants' bullish stance is evident. In such a trading environment, I would not be surprised if a sudden surge occurs later.

[Options Talk] Educational Article: Analysis of the Correlation Between Stock Price Returns and Implied Volatility ($TSLA)

$MU Micron is the data pattern I've seen in the past two days that is relatively reassuring.
The top-left chart is the short-term volatility trend chart. Although the stock price has experienced a significant decline recently, volatility has remained high and even reached new highs in recent trading days. The options expiring next Friday have already reached 106%, and even after deducting the earnings report effect baseline, they are still in an upward trend.

The top-right chart is the Put/Call volatility spread trend chart. Among the options expiring in the next month, the two nearer-term options have already returned to a positive spread state. This marks the end of a more than one-month period dominated by bullish sentiment. If the market can shift back to being dominated by bearish sentiment and maintain it for a while, it will be particularly beneficial for the stock price consolidation.

The bottom-left chart is the options position change chart. The options expiring in 7 days and 42 days show a relatively noticeable increase in new bearish (put) option positions, while other options do not show active opening of bullish (call) positions.

The bottom-right chart is the single-day position change chart from last Friday. The active opening of bullish (call) options has not decreased. Note that at a time when the stock price and the overall market environment have clearly pulled back, the opening of bullish options has not cooled down, which is a rather special signal. However, because the volatility spread continues to move towards positive values, I would not interpret these new bearish positions as long positions entering the market.

Conclusion: $MU market participants have shown a moderate retreat into bearish positions, but overall volatility is rising instead of falling. This state makes me feel that upward momentum can restart at any time. Do not short $MU lightly. Although the stock price continues to fall, the trading data is already relatively healthy among various stock categories.

I'm on a flight back to Taiwan.On the way there, I had to drive as soon as I landed, so I didn't drink at all. On the way back, I'm taking a car to Hsinchu, so I'm drinking freely on the plane with peace of mind.I'm feeling quite relaxed, after all, I've completed a mission, taking my parents on a big loop around the northernmost part of Japan's main island all by myself.We are so dedicated to trading and investing because of love.We hope to reach a state where we live in complete freedom. If you understand yourself deeply enough, you'll probably find that you don't want to make money because you love money. Fundamentally, you want to make money because you love yourself. Making money is just a means, not an end.You want to avoid grievances, you want to live the way you desire, so you yearn to earn enough money.You, we, make money because of love.At the same time, we hope our family can also enter this state. We hope the people we love can also live as they like.So, we invest our efforts, we dare to endure.First $AVGO then $ORCL, this wave of pullback probably won't end early.All things that are particularly meaningful are never easy. I understand your difficulties, and I'm certain these difficulties will accompany us for life.But, it's okay, because with love, whether it's love for ourselves or love for our family, we can withstand disappointment after disappointment.By the time you read this message, I'll already be back in Taiwan. I've returned to the team, let's fight side by side again!

$ASTS  Since the Blue Origin rocket explosion, stocks in the space industry have been acting strangely. $ASTS stock price has been highly volatile, and in the short term, it's also been affected by the SpaceX (SPCX) IPO, showing a clear phenomenon of "fund rotation + sell the news." Last Friday, the stock price fell 15.53%, and the current price is $82.41.

The most clear positive catalyst recently is that AST SpaceMobile has confirmed that BlueBird 8, 9, and 10 will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral on June 17.
These are next-generation satellites with larger communication arrays and expected peak speeds nearly doubling. In the direct-to-cell market, $ASTS has patent protection in terms of technology and has also signed contracts with telecom operators. Currently, I believe it has the technological capability to share the market with SpaceX in the direct-to-cell service field.

But whether a company can operate well isn't solely about technological strength.
The stock price is vastly different from the current revenue. Investors must subsequently see a steep revenue growth curve; otherwise, it's insufficient to support the current stock price.

The top-left chart shows the implied volatility over the past two years. In this chart, we can clearly see the significantly declined stock price while volatility remains high. This is a relatively positive aspect I see in today's data, but how positive this is must be judged with the help of the Put/Call volatility spread.

The top-right chart shows the recent trend of the volatility spread. This chart looks quite unfavorable because, despite such a large drop in stock price, the main trading pattern is still chasing to buy call options. The volatility spread has been in a deeply negative state most of the time. Very few market participants are buying Puts to hedge against the price drop; everyone is still in the fervent speculative atmosphere of buying on every dip.

For the stock price to rise sharply, it naturally needs speculative frenzy to boost it. However, during the process of price correction and consolidation, if it doesn't trigger panic and spur a frenzy of chasing to buy put options, it's very unfavorable for the price correction and consolidation. In plain terms: the deleveraging of the long positions hasn't been completed yet.
Only after removing the long positions can favorable conditions for the next big rally be brewed.

Looking at the bottom-right chart, the correlation coefficient analysis between stock return and volatility, as expected, the current correlation coefficient still maintains a significantly positive correlation. The stock price has fallen so much, but compared to February and April this year, we cannot determine that the price correction is complete based on the existing data.

The bottom-left chart is the option position change chart from last Friday's trading. There is still a more noticeable increase in call option positions, but put option positions have also started to increase, which is a good sign. I think the stock price shouldn't rush to rebound subsequently. It would be a better state if it could consolidate weakly and let the bullish trading sentiment cool down.

Summary: The stock price has already fallen so much, but the analysis data surprisingly suggests "it hasn't fallen enough yet."

[Implied Volatility Rank, Cross-Security Comparison]
$MRVL remains at the top, still at rank=100.
$CRM has shown strong stock price performance recently, with its I.V. rank rising to 88.
$AMD / $MU remain high at 77.
$INTC is relatively high at 75.

Stocks with particularly low Volatility Rank:
$IBIT is down to only 8, completely ignored. $NOK's stock price has surged strongly, but its rank is only 12. $CIFR, $AMZN, and $HYG. 

$IBIT  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 $MSTR and $COIN 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 $IBIT 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 $IBIT has continued to decline. Even though the real-time stock price (BTC price) later showed a pattern of gradual increase, $IBIT'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 $IBIT'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.

$INTC taught me an important lesson this year.
After $INTC's earnings report in January, the implied volatility did not drop back to its previous benchmark (~40%). At the time, I didn't fully understand it and only warned in my analysis article that trading activity remained high. This unusual behavior caught my attention, but I couldn't just imagine that the stock price would surge significantly afterwards.
After the January earnings, the implied volatility has been oscillating at a significantly higher new plateau. This persisted for over a month, during which the stock price remained in a sideways consolidation. As you all know, what happened later was the stock price surged sharply from around $50 to touch $120.

The most recent earnings were on 04/23. After this earnings report, the volatility simply did not decline; there was hardly any benchmark value anymore. The volatility after the 04/23 earnings has been oscillating near the peak level from the report.
Therefore, do not short it! I would even suggest that if you have a large position in the underlying stock and you have the itch to sell covered calls, it's certainly possible, given the abnormally high volatility. However, keep the size of your sold position small and, taking advantage of the high volatility, try to sell short-term, deep out-of-the-money options.
The current observation is that $INTC's stock performance has been quite good over the past week, but the oscillation of volatility remains within a normal range, which is a good thing.

The top-right chart shows the Put/Call volatility skew over the past two years. This chart reveals that $INTC's volatility skew has often stayed below the zero line over the past two years; this is its fundamental characteristic. Therefore, unless the volatility skew drops below -20, we should not consider it "long crowding," as historical data from the past two years shows that $INTC's participants just like to crowd in and join the excitement.
The current volatility skew is even in a relatively conservative state, hovering near the zero line.

The bottom-left chart is an analysis of the correlation coefficient between stock price returns and volatility. This chart made my eyes pop!

Since May, $INTC's stock price has been consolidating at high levels, once briefly dipping below $100. Yet, just this level of price correction has already pushed the correlation coefficient downward, with the red line (Put) falling even lower. Even with the significant rise in $INTC's stock price over the past week, the correlation coefficient hasn't immediately rebounded to its previous highs. If this week's trading pushes $INTC's correlation coefficient further down to touch -0.5, it will complete a very healthy price consolidation pattern. This is quite remarkable: with limited price decline, managing to cool down or even reverse trading sentiment. Once such a pattern is completed, it sets the stage for the next potential price increase.

The bottom-right chart shows the intraday options position change chart. Call option building has been more active. Moreover, due to $INTC's inherent stock characteristic of having a tendency for chasing and buying calls, a certain level of new call option positions is maintained even without specific news.

Summary: $INTC is close to completing a high-level consolidation where price decline is limited, but trading sentiment is reversing. Whether it completes will be revealed in this week's trading. Once $INTC's stock price completes its consolidation at high levels, it creates favorable conditions for the next upward move.

$SATS acquired SpaceX equity by "selling spectrum." In 2025, it reached a spectrum transaction with SpaceX (AWS-4H block, approximately 65 MHz), with SpaceX paying a large amount of cash plus up to $11 billion worth of SpaceX stock. This deal significantly improved EchoStar's balance sheet and resulted in SpaceX holdings accounting for an extremely high proportion of $SATS's market value.
Since the rocket explosion incident of Blue Origin, the stock performance of space-related stocks has not been good, and we haven't looked at $SATS's trading data for a while.
Overall implied volatility of $SATS over the past two years (top-left chart): Although the stock price has recently pulled back, implied volatility remains high. This high level is unlikely to come down before SpaceX's IPO. Comparing its historical record, the peaks of particularly high implied volatility did not correspond to stock price tops; they even had the potential to be starting points for rallies. From this perspective alone, it is positive.
Volatility is still present; stock price momentum is still present.
The top-right chart shows the recent trend of the Put/Call volatility spread. This result surprised me. We can see the volatility spread entering a deep negative range, with current call option buying momentum extremely strong. Interestingly, even though the stock price has significantly retreated, the momentum of long-side chasing is even stronger.
The bottom-left chart separately plots the volatility of options. It is very clear that the strong SpaceX IPO narrative persists, and for all options expiring within the next month, call option volatility is significantly higher than put option volatility. Long-side momentum is very strong and confident, ignoring the recent stock price decline.
The bottom-right chart shows that in the last trading session, there was a significant scale of call option closing positions. If the volatility spread continues to move more negative even while these positions are being closed, I speculate that the closing was led by buyers. Sellers who originally sold call options took profits and exited early, taking advantage of the significant recent stock price decline.
Conclusion: Although the $SATS trading landscape still has a strong $SpaceX IPO narrative component, even disregarding this event, $SATS trading remains dominated by call options.

$MSFT  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 $MSFT 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 $MSFT 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 $MSFT 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 $MSFT 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 $MSFT 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.

$NOK I no longer highlight $NOK'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 $NOK'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 $NOK 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.

$IBM'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'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 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'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. 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 $MU, $TSM, $NVDA, which is based on actual revenue backing.

There's no bad news heard about $LITE'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 $LITE'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.

$QQQ seems to have fired the first shot after $AVGO's earnings report the day before yesterday, and then the market sentiment turned sour. During yesterday's session, the declines of many individual stocks were somewhat contained, but $AVGO, which ignited the fuse, still fell by 12.59%.This decline is probably not something that can be resolved by a one-day pullback; at least $AVGO hasn't shown any signs of stopping the decline yet.If we look at the trading data of the broader market ($QQQ). The top-left chart shows the overall implied volatility over the past two years, which is currently in a neither-here-nor-there position. Whether it's going back to the low point at the beginning of the year or the high point in April, we can always deduce some ideas. Unfortunately, the current volatility is at a moderate 20% level.The top-right chart shows the implied volatility over the past two years. The current volatility spread is also very close to past benchmark values, and like most sectors, it is dominated by the volatility of put options.Quite pessimistic. According to the two charts above, if we are currently in a downtrend, we can say with certainty that we are still in the early stages, and there is still some distance to go before reaching near the bottom.The bottom-left chart is the intraday position change chart. This chart is even more sensitive, showing active put option opening. But this is not necessarily bullish or bearish, because despite such obvious new put option positions, the volatility spread hasn't shown a significant jump (whether up or down).The bottom-right chart shows an even worse characteristic.How bad is it?In the trading of the past year, the QQQ ETF has never had a positive correlation coefficient. In the past year, it was only in the last month that the stock price return and volatility showed a positive correlation for the first time.The bottom of a stock price is more often associated with a highly strong negative correlation, while the top of a stock price is prone to trading overheating.When the stock price rises and the call option volatility also continues to rise, this is a behavior of chasing prices to buy Calls. When the stock price falls slightly, the volatility of Calls also falls in sync. The bullish sentiment is shallow; it follows rises and flees from falls. This synchronized, sensitive state is the primary condition for incubating a significant downtrend.Conclusion: Everyone, be careful! There are no signals of a price bottom, and some signals indicate that the main decline phase has not yet appeared.