--- title: "Small-cap stocks are moving in unison, bottom-fishing is in vogue, but the strongest signal is a short position." type: "Topics" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/topics/42514006.md" description: "There's a counterintuitive aspect to the movement of these small-cap stocks on 7/7: The most active-looking ones were the bottom-fishing Calls, but on that day, the ones that truly played out according to the market trend were all on the bearish side. $Ramaco - CL(METC.US) is the only one among these individual stocks that I'm willing to test with a small position today. The near-the-money Call at $12, expiring on 8/21, with $38.5k entered in two batches—being near-the-money and having repeated trades leaves more of an institutional fingerprint than those deep out-of-the-money lottery tickets. The options-to-stock ratio of 0.048% is only moderate, and the volume isn't large either..." datetime: "2026-07-08T11:44:59.000Z" locales: - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/topics/42514006.md) - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/topics/42514006.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/topics/42514006.md) author: "[小票做T家](https://longbridge.com/en/profiles/27710306.md)" --- # Small-cap stocks are moving in unison, bottom-fishing is in vogue, but the strongest signal is a short position. There's a counterintuitive aspect to the movement of these small-cap stocks on 7/7: what looks the busiest is the bottom-fishing Call options, but the ones that were truly realized by the market that day were all on the bearish side. $Ramaco - CL(METC.US) Among the real stocks today, this is the only one I'm willing to test with a small position. $12 near-the-money Call, expiring 8/21, $38.5K entered in two batches—being near-the-money plus repeated fills adds a bit more institutional fingerprint compared to those deep out-of-the-money lottery tickets. The option/stock ratio of 0.048% is only medium, and the volume isn't large either. Morgan Stanley just maintained a Hold rating and lowered the target price to 26.67, but that price is still significantly higher than the current price of 12.16. So I'll take a small, cautious try. The underlying stock only fell 2.3% on 7/7, hardly a strong trend. $Boost Run(BRUN.US) This one is a short position, but it's the most significant trade today—$1.17 million, 3,646 contracts of $25 Puts, with an option/stock ratio of 0.117% crossing the line. The logic also checks out: on 7/6, the company just raised $45 million through the exercise of public warrants, an obvious dilution. On 7/7, the underlying stock fell 9.7% to close at 29.18, and the shorts made money that very day. So this isn't a signal to go long; on the contrary, it's a reminder that there's capital betting on a short-term downside for this stock—don't try to catch its bounce. The strongest signal today is this contrarian short position. $Ultragenyx Pharma(RARE.US) This one is the most interesting and also the easiest to misread. On 7/7, the underlying stock rose 6.4% against the trend (RBC gave a bullish rating, optimistic about the ASPIRE data for GTX-102), yet someone in the market bought $650K worth of Puts, betting on a mid-September expiration. The direction is clearly contradictory, how to explain it? My judgment is that this Put trade isn't betting on the trend; it's buying binary insurance for the ASPIRE data readout—biopharma data is like opening a blind box, it's normal to buy downside protection while the price is rising. So don't follow it as "bearish on RARE"; it's just an event hedge. $Roundhill T-Rex 2X Long DRAM Dly TrgtETF(RAM.US) I'm throwing this one out directly. $22 Call, 108% out-of-the-money, sounds intimidating with a $300K size, but it can't even pull up market cap data. The underlying stock has been in a collapse this week—crashed 22% on 7/1, smashed another 16% on 7/2, to close at 16.73 on 7/7, and fell to 14.6 in pre-market on 7/8. Buying deep out-of-the-money Calls on a stock that's digging a hole downwards isn't bottom-fishing; it's reaching out on a falling knife—pure lottery, I won't touch it. Ranking them like this, my watchlist is actually very short: try METC with a small position, don't go heavy; keep an eye on BRUN's downside, don't go long; wait for RARE's ASPIRE data window, treat it only as an event; RAM is out. In the small-cap game, the busiest isn't necessarily the real deal—the one you should believe in today is actually that contrarian short position. ### Related Stocks - [RARE.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/RARE.US.md) - [RAM.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/RAM.US.md) - [METC.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/METC.US.md) - [METCB.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/METCB.US.md) - [METCI.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/METCI.US.md) - [METCZ.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/METCZ.US.md) - [BRUN.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BRUN.US.md) - [BRUNW.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BRUNW.US.md) - [CL.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/CL.US.md) - [RUN.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/RUN.US.md)