Options flow this week reveals a stark divide. Bulls are piling into utilities and infrastructure names, while sustained bearish bets target consumer-facing stocks already reeling from sharp price declines.
AT&T stands out as the most bearish large-cap by options sentiment. Just 12.9% of options bets over the past week were bullish — making it the most skewed put-heavy name among stocks with meaningful options volume. The stock is down 3.2% year-to-date. Analysts still see 19.4% upside, but the options market is pushing the other way.
Lululemon tells a similar story. Only 29.5% of its options flow leaned bullish this week. The stock is off 38.5% this year. Its ORTEX short score sits at 48.8, with 2.2 days to cover. Options traders are not betting on a recovery yet.
Bearish flows are also clustering around heavily-shorted, high-DTC names. Lucid Group carries an ORTEX short score of 84.2 and 7.7 days to cover. It drew large negative bets this week. Charter Communications has a short score of 75.1 and 8.6 days to cover. Both sit deep in bear territory on the options desk.
On the other side, Trane Technologies logged 100% bullish options flow over the past seven days — one of several industrial and infrastructure names where call activity dominated entirely. , up 202% year-to-date, drew the biggest absolute negative bets in semiconductors but that likely reflects hedging rather than outright bearish positioning.
Earnings risk is also shaping flow. Home Depot, Cisco, and Applied Materials all report this week. Options positioning in those names will likely shift sharply around their results.
This is not financial advice.
ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
