Earnings Season Tilts Options Sentiment to the Bulls

Tech earnings week is pulling options flow heavily to the call side. Union Pacific, Cintas, and Illinois Tool Works all show 100% positive options flow over the past seven days, according to ORTEX data. That signals buyers are loading calls ahead of a packed results calendar.

The broader setup is bullish on the surface. Mega-cap tech dominates this week's schedule, with Microsoft and Amazon among the heavyweights due to report. Options positioning across large-caps tilts toward calls, consistent with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closing higher on chip stock recovery.

Not all flow is one-directional. CoreWeave carries a short score of 66.8 and an RSI of just 26.6. The stock is down 22% year-to-date. Put protection in beaten-down AI infrastructure names remains a live theme. Intel, by contrast, is up 132% year-to-date but sits with an RSI of 30.5, suggesting a sharp pullback from recent peaks. Options traders face a binary choice there ahead of its Q3 print.

On the bearish flow side, Norfolk Southern and Brookfield Asset Management both show 0% positive options flow. Both carry earnings events in the near term.

Taiwan export orders hit their highest September reading since 1984 at $95.7bn, according to ORTEX Alt Data. That tailwind underpins the semiconductor-linked call bias visible in names like Silicon Motion Technology, up 103% year-to-date and carrying a high analyst return potential of 97%.

With the Russell 2000 December review ranking on 30 October, index-rebalance mechanics add a secondary options catalyst for small-cap names near the cut-off line.