Bears Load Chips, Bulls Flood Energy Options

Options flow on Halloween flashed a clear split: semiconductor names absorbed the week's heaviest bearish bets while energy and financials drew near-pure call demand.

MU led bearish notional flow over the past seven days. META, AMD, and NVDA ranked close behind. All four carried a positive options bet percentage near zero, meaning put flow dominated. NFLX sat at an RSI of 30. That adds to a picture of concentrated downside hedging across the growth complex.

The bull camp told a different story. BK, KMI, SPG, and FOX all showed a 100% positive options bet ratio over seven days. Fox carries an ORTEX short score of 74. A swing to all-call flow in a heavily shorted name is worth watching for squeeze potential.

LQDA stood out as a smaller-cap options focus. Its short score of 62 places it among the most-watched bearish targets. A wave of negative press hit the stock this week, and options expiries run weekly through January 2027, giving traders fine-grained tools to press the short thesis.

HMC reports on 6 November. ORTEX Alt Data shows Japanese car registrations running 10% below the same quarter last year, a dataset with a 65-day lead on Honda revenue. That reading does not predict the print, but options traders appear alert: the nearest expiry is 6 November itself.

CHTR faces added pressure from the MSCI World rebalance radar. ORTEX forecasts a 65% deletion probability. That implies $870 million of forced selling. Charter's weekly options chain extends through January 2027.