Unusual Options Activity in United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS)

Today, January 21, 2022, among the underlying components of the NYSE, we saw unusual or noteworthy options trading volume and activity in United Parcel, which opened at $202.57.

The following orders came in together as 5,000 contracts traded, dated for March 18th, 2022:

• $210 strike call options bought to open at the ask at a spot of $5.36 with a bid-ask range of $5.15 to $5.40.
• $220 strike call options sold to open at the bid at a spot of $2.51 with a bid-ask range of $2.54 to $2.77.

Altogether, this represents a bullish call debit spread.

These orders come just after reports from Zacks Equity Research that:  “Investors will be hoping for strength from United Parcel Service as it approaches its next earnings release, which is expected to be February 1, 2022.”

Of interest, these orders were marked as “floor”.  Floor traders work on the floor of an exchange.  When a floor trader executes a trade, exclusively for their own account, it must be reported on an exchange by the "floor" tag.

Click here to read about floor traders' performance.

The volatility skew above represents that there is more IV at deeper in the money strikes and significantly more at the closer expirations.  This type of skew is called a “smirk” and is expected with an upcoming catalyst, such as United Parcel reporting its earnings on February 1st, 2022.

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

Unusual Options Activity in Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. - Petrobras (PBR)

Again in the NYSE, we saw unusual activity in Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. - Petrobras (PBR), which opened today at $12.68.

The following orders did not come in together.  Both of their respective chains had lower open interest than the sizes of their orders:

• 1,000 contracts on the $13 strike calls sold to open at the bid, dated for February 25th, 2022; these orders were marked as a floor trade.
• 968 contracts on the $14 strike puts bought to open at the ask, dated for February 18th, 2022.

These orders come after Zacks Equity Research reported Petróleo Brasileiro has reduced its 2022-26 production targets.

This is not the first time we have reported on unusual options activity in Petróleo Brasileiro.  Click here to read our previous reports.

A tip from the flow: Trades appended with a briefcase emoji can be intuited as bought or sold to open. This determination is made if the size of the trade was greater than the chain's open interest.

Only trades that can be positively identified as being bought or sold to open will be marked as such (with the briefcase).  

Be mindful!  Trades without the briefcase emoji might still have been bought or sold to open!  You may also watch this video to see how to track these kinds of opportunities in the Unusual Whales flow.

Furthermore, just because these orders were indeed opened, it cannot be absolutely known whether these calls were sold to open or bought to open; however, they were traded at and in some cases above the ask, so assuming long, bought to open positions is often what intuition tells us.

37.22% of the premium traded at the $30,000 levels are in bullish bets, with a great majority of betting being in put premiums. Furthermore, the $5,000 premium levels are in bearish premiums at 66.97%, with over $1M in premium traded in puts, albeit $946.8K in calls.

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

Unusual Options Activity in Matterport, Inc. (MTTR)

Finally, in the Nasdaq Global Market Composite (NasdaqGM), we saw unusual or noteworthy options trading volume and activity in Matterport, Inc. (MTTR), which opened today at $10.99.

The following orders came in together as 4,000 contracts traded, dated for February 18th, 2022:

• $10 strike put options bought to open at the ask at a spot of $1 with a bid-ask range of $.9 to $.95.
• $12.5 strike put options sold to open at the bid at a spot of $2.5 with a bid-ask range of $2.4 to $2.7.

Altogether, this represents a bullish put credit spread.

However, not all are bullish on Matterport:

• There were 30 contracts bought to open at the ask on the $40 strike put option, dated for January 20th, 2023.

Indeed, of the options order flow today, 76.42% of premium traded have been in puts, with 50.74% of premium being in bullish betting (ask-side calls and bid-side puts).

These orders come after repeated reports by The Motley Fool speculating that Matterport is a “beat down stock” that could see potential in the coming years, and:  

“Once they do, this company could grow for a long time as a platform others are building on -- a great place to be in the tech ecosystem.”

Of note, the put/call ratio in Matterport is 2.15, which might be seen as tremendously bearish to some.  As always, put/call ratio is but one indicator, and alone not actionable, and the options order flow must be researched holistically.

A tip from the flow:  The put/call ratio (P/C) is put volume divided by call volume.  Put/call ratio is important and can be an indication of sentiment shifting.  A P/C greater than .7 means more puts are being bought than calls, so the trend is getting bearish.  A P/C of .7 to .5 is becoming more bullish.

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

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