Unusual Options Activity in Pulte Group. (PHM)

Today, April 12, 2022, among the underlying components of the NYSE, we saw unusual or noteworthy options trading volume and activity in PHM 7/15/2022 P $40.00

The following orders were swept-to-fill on the 40 and 45 strike calls. These huge trades were selling calls, while large orders were on the 40 put.

Seen above are the noteworthy options in PHM from the Unusual Whales flow.

You can see for each bearish position, the volume was greater than open interest (thus the exclamation mark)

Additionally, these orders were seen in the new Unusual Whales Hottest Chains tool as well as flow dashboard..

These orders come after PulteGroup and their founder have been attacking BCG, and BCG opened a piece after the Pulte Group.

As mentioned, these orders were marked as a “sweep”. An options sweep (or sweep-to-fill) occurs when a broker splits an order into many parts in order to get the best possible pricings currently offered on the market.

These orders can often be filled across multiple exchanges and the broker will continue to fill the order lot by lot, always for the best possible price, until the order is completely filled.

Sweeps might stand out because they imply some entity (or entities) wanted to enter specific options contracts regardless of their price, as they were focused only on having their entire bulk order filled as quickly as possible. While the magnitude of sweeps might stand out, each one must be investigated thoroughly to understand what the sentiment of a trader is as compared to the overall flow.

Seen above is the aforementioned chain’s historical volume, in red, and open interest, in blue, as bar charts behind the requisite bid and ask, in a light blue and darker shade, respectively.

The volume on this chain has now increased to 4067 as of this writing; the open interest today was 3,1094, so we can intuit these contracts all as having been bought or sold to open, not closed.

To view more information about PHM's daily flow breakdown, click here to visit unusualwhales.com.

Unusual Options Activity in Twitter, Inc. (TWTR)

Again in the NYSE, we saw unusual or noteworthy options trading volume and activity in Twitter, Inc. (TWTR):

There were 20,2833 contracts traded on the $45.5 strike put option dated for April 22nd, 2022, close to the ask at a spot of $2
The volume on this chain is greater than its open interest, as compared to the previous unusual activity in this report.
However, these contracts are noteworthy due to the size of the order, and because none are cross trades: Cross trades occur when a broker executed buy and sell orders for this same position from different client accounts and then reported them on an exchange. In other words, these are an aggregation of many positions taken on both the buy and sell side.
These are clean trades where volume > OI, or size > oi, and where they are opening trades (ie: traders are taking a new position
You can see right at open (6:33am PST) traders took a huge bearish position into Twitter, with the stock now down 5% at time of writing.
Always be aware of the new positions traders are taking and follow the flow

Seen above are the noteworthy options in Twitter from the Unusual Whales flow.

These orders come after Elon Musk decided to not join the board of Twitter.

Imgur: https://i.vgy.me/pS1Xyo.png

Seen above is the aforementioned chain’s historical volume, in red, and open interest, in blue, as bar charts behind the requisite bid and ask, in a light blue and darker shade, respectively.

As stated, these orders were not greater than the chain’s open interest. Therefore, we might intuit that these contracts are being bought and sold to close, as in traders are looking to exit their orders, especially after they have profited (either by selling short or otherwise) since Twitter’s earnings report.

To view more information about TWTR's flow breakdown, click here to visit unusualwhales.com.