1. $SMH put/call landed at 2.03 today, still bouncing around in that same elevated range we've been tracking all week. But the volume misses the point, look at the $500 put: 93,418 contracts of open interest against only 8,894 traded today. That's a floor someone's been quietly building for a while, way below the $541.73 spot. If $SMH ever actually gets down there we'll know exactly why the flow's been this jumpy.
2. $AMD calls are pricing 80% IV at the $500 strike and $MU puts hit 78% at $850, both way above the 20-30% IV we're seeing across the mega caps today. That kind of premium doesn't show up for no reason, feels like event risk baked in. If you're not trying to guess direction, that's rich juice for covered calls or cash-secured puts on names you'd hold anyway.
3. $MSFT put/call is 0.34 today, basically a rerun of the 0.33 read we flagged back on July 20. Calls keep stacking at the $395 strike right on top of spot, and now $400 calls are picking up steam too. Bulls haven't blinked in a week, but that much one-way flow makes me want to fade the crowd, not join it.
Aggregated and distilled by Two Sentence Traders. Not financial advice.