Unusual Options Activity in Paramount Global (PARA)

Today, March 14, 2022, in the NasdaqGS, there was unusual or noteworthy options trading activity in Paramount Global (PARA), which opened at $33.02.

• There were a series of contracts traded on the $43.5 strike call option contract for March 18th, 2022, bought to open at or near the ask with a bid-ask spread of $0.65 to $0.66.
• The highest price on this chain thus far has been $0.74, so these contracts can be interpreted as having been purchased at the ask at the time of these trades.
• The volume on this chain thus far has been 4,288 contracts traded and the open interest was 412 as of this morning’s open.  Therefore, we may intuit these contracts are being either bought or sold to open, not being closed.
• These orders come after Motley Fool speculated on: “Why Disney+ Subscriber Growth Is About to Explode”.

As seen, the contracts had an acceleration factor of 0.94, implying there was a rapid increase in trading activity over open interest on this chain.  Furthermore, the red bar in the “OHLC” column is lower than the green, implying the low price was a valid entry and has sold higher than its current price, open contract price, and closing price.

A tip from the flow: The ⚠️emoji means the size of the order was greater than the open interest on the chain itself.

The open interest on this chain today was 412 contracts and the volume thus far has been approximately 4.3K; therefore, these contracts may be intuited as having been to open.

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

Unusual Options Activity in General Motors Company (GM)

In the NYSE, there was unusual or noteworthy options trading activity in General Motors Company (GM), which opened today at $41.74.

• There were a series of repeated orders on the $40 strike call options dated for April 14th, 2022.
• However, the open interest on this chain was 18,434 and the volume was approximately 2,204, so therefore it cannot be known as to whether these orders are being opened or closed.
• Additionally, these orders come after Reuters reported that “Electric-car makers may have to rethink how they source raw materials as the surge in commodity prices due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine puts pressure on their profit margins, analysts at RBC wrote in a note on Monday.”

A tip from the flow: When viewing alerts in the Unusual Whales flow alerts page, you can click “Link to flow” to view chain’s activity in the overall options order flow, as seen here:

A tip from the flow: When viewing alerts in the Unusual Whales flow, you can click the order’s option contract expiration to open another panel which has three additional charts and a table to take a deeper dive into the company’s overall intraday options volumes, the chain’s bid-ask pressures, and historical volumes and open interests.

As seen, the orders this morning almost all came through in a solitary 10-minute block and were exclusively at the ask.

There is no way to discern whether these contracts were opened or closed, however, as the open interest on this chain was 18,434 and the volume is 2,204; given the bid-ask spread on this chain also climbed from $0.22 to $0.25 from Friday’s close to $0.81 to $0.87 today, it might be assumed these contracts are being closed, as these are the greatest profits on this chain since March 3rd, 2022.

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

Unusual Options Activity in Arch Resources, Inc. (ARCH)

Finally in the NYSE, there was unusual or noteworthy options trading activity in Arch Resources, Inc. (ARCH), which opened today at $149.38.

There were a series of orders at 200 contract sizing on a variety of contracts all upon the August 19th, 2022 expirations:

• $160 strike call options at a spot price of $19.12 with a bid-ask of $17.30 to $20.90 with an open interest of 1 and a volume of 643.
• $200 strike call options at a spot price of $10.12 with a bid-ask of $5.10 to $13.70 with an open interest of 1 and a volume of 433.
• $230 strike call options at a spot price of $4.75 with a bid-ask of $2.75 to $4.80 with an open interest of 0 and a volume of 426.
• Additionally, these orders come after Validea rated Arch Resources as one of the “Top Five Energy Stocks Based On Warren Buffett”.

A tip from the flow: Trades appended with the ↕ and 🔃 emojis are trades that have potentially came in together as a part of a strategy, and are coded accordingly (such as MLET or TLCT) under the codes column.  Clicking on these emojis will open all of the trades that came in together so that the holistic strategy may be investigated.

As these contracts are traded so far out of the money, there could be speculation that these contracts are traded as a call debit spread, but as the bid-ask spreads are wide and the spot prices were relatively at the mid, it is difficult to make this distinction absolutely.

As of this writing, Arch Resources has had 3,533 calls traded, which is 353% greater than its 30-day call average.

Furthermore, Arch Resources’ total open interest has climbed to 34,156 from 14,115 from February 24th, 2022 (made apparent with the highest blue line on the chart above); this implies there are still higher than average holdings in options contracts in Arch Resources.

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

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