Storage sell-off day: MU bottom-fished against the trend, AMAT dumped Put with the trend

On July 7th Eastern Time, the entire chip sector continued its previous panic, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunging heavily, and the three memory giants collectively falling into a technical bear market. However, the flow of unusual funds showed a clear divergence—some were bottom-fishing, some were shorting the trend, and some were long-term holding with short-term hedging. Let's break down these three lines.

$Micron Tech(MU.US)
Direction: Bullish (Bottom-fishing)
Structure: Laddered Buy Calls layered with Sell Puts
Strike Price: $980 / $930 / $920 (Main leg $980)
Expiration: July 10–August 7 (Main leg DTE3)
Notional Size: ~$3.9M (Call side $3.5M / Sell Put $762k)
Volume: $980 Call three trades totaling 1435 contracts
Insight: Stacking three tiers of Calls from near to far, with selling a $500 Put below for financing, is a heavy directional bet on the DRAM price increase cycle. However, the underlying stock closed at 938 on July 7, already below the $980 strike price. The main leg with only 3 days to expiration (DTE) is approaching zero. The pre-market on July 8 dropped to 890—this trade is just for watching, not following, until the direction materializes.

$Applied Materials(AMAT.US)
Direction: Bearish
Structure: Deep out-of-the-money Buy Put
Strike Price: $310
Expiration: August 21 (DTE45)
Notional Size: $1.71M
Volume: 4169 contracts
Insight: A far-term Put that is 41.9% OTM. The underlying stock closed at 554, down 6.5% on July 7, directly dragged down by Samsung's miss. The short direction was realized on the same day. However, a deep OTM Put with a medium-term expiration looks more like tail hedging against the equipment chain, not a bet on a crash within a week. Following this direction requires the patience to hold for the full 45 days.

$NVIDIA(NVDA.US)
Direction: Hedging (Both sides)
Structure: Sell Put + 2027 LEAPS Call + Near-month Buy Put
Strike Price: $197.5 / $250 / $192.5
Expiration: July 2026 – February 2027 (LEAPS DTE227)
Notional Size: ~$3.0M
Volume: $192.5 near-month Put 5434 contracts
Insight: Selling a near-the-money Put + buying a $250 LEAPS for 2027 bets on the long term, while buying a $192.5 near-month Put hedges against a short-term pullback. The underlying stock rose slightly by 0.7% to close at 196.93 on July 7, having just secured a large order from Perplexity but still down 17% from its high. This is a typical long-term hold with short-term hedging, not betting on a single direction.

The next key point is the expiration of this batch of near-month contracts on July 17—both MU $980 and NVDA $192.5 have pressure on that day. Whether the memory sector can first stop falling in the technical bear market, the few trading days before July 17 will be the watershed.