Many investors don’t pay attention to them, because options are too confusing and there can be multiple implications from a single data point. However, traders who are looking for opportunity often like to see their thesis line up with unusual options activity.

Simply put, when large traders or big investors (like hedge funds and investment firms) make their moves, they can often leave their footprints behind. Those footprints show up in the form of outsized options activity in the underlying stocks.

With that in mind, let’s look at five stocks with some heavy call flow over the last week.

Disney (DIS)

Disney (US:DIS) stock has been wallowing in its poor performance this year, down about 3% so far in 2023. That’s despite the strong performances from the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Now Disney has caught our attention as the No. 1 stock on the Options Flow Leaderboard this week.

Institutions have been busy selling large quantities of deep-in-the-money put options — a bullish options trade.

On July 7 and July 10, one or possibly several firms were noted for selling the January 2024 $150 and $160 puts in roughly $15 million to $20 million blocks. In total, just over $100 million worth of these options were sold between these trades.

A few days later on July 12, someone sold $63 million worth of the January 2024 $160 puts in two trades worth about $31.5 million apiece. Later in the day, they sold another $100 million of these puts (between two trades) along with $44.9 million worth of the January 2024 $150 puts.

---

Nvidia (NVDA)

Seemingly every bulls’ favorite stock this year, Nvidia (US:NVDA) was the No. 2 stock on the Options Flow Leaderboard this week.

There were some rather notable seven-figure bearish options trades this week, but what really stuck out was the large, deep-in-the-money call buying we saw.

That’s as one trader bought $66.1 million worth of the September $350 calls, which were in-the-money by about $85 at the time of the trade on July 12. A day later at the close on July 13th, that contract was $110 in-the-money.

Perhaps this was the same trader either rolling their position up or potentially adding to it, as someone scooped up $54.3 million worth of the September $370 calls on July 13.

Like the first trade, these calls expire in September and were about $80 in-the-money at the time of the trade.

---

Meta Platforms (META) 

Up 91.7% so far in 2023, Meta Platforms (US:META) has been the best-performing FAANG holding so far this year — by a wide margin. A bulk of its notable options action came late in the week. The action here was slightly mixed, although when we consider the size of the trades, it was decidedly more bullish than bearish.

That’s as one trader sold $15.9 million worth of the January 2024 $160 calls — a bearish trade on its own — which were deep-in-the-money with the stock trading near $314 a share.

A few hours later, someone sold a similar amount of calls, this time collecting $15.1 million in premium by selling the January 2025 out-of-the-money $400 calls.

Interestingly, this second trade came within minutes of additional activity in some long-dated calls. That’s as roughly $87.9 million of the December 2025 $600 calls were purchased. This is a very large position, particularly considering that the strike price is roughly double the current stock price, although there’s almost 900 days left until expiration.

---

Tesla (TSLA)

Like Meta, the options action in Tesla (US:TSLA) really picked up later in the week. Notably, on July 12, one trader sold $5.05 million worth of the $360 puts expiring in nine days on July 21 and sold $12.6 million worth of the $355 puts with the same expiration.

With these calls expiring in such a short amount of time, this was a rather interesting play as these puts were so deep-in-the-money.

However, this strike remained pretty active.

That’s as traders were buying the July $355, $360, $365 and $370 puts. These purchases were mostly in the $5 million to $6 million range, although one trader did buy $12.48 million of the July $355 puts. Another trader bought $3.5 million of the July $305 puts, which expired on July 14.

---

Nike (NKE)

Like Disney, Nike (US:NKE) has had a mixed performance this year, with shares down about 7.5% so far in 2023. There was not a lot of options activity to note this week, although it certainly tilted bullish with several low-seven-figure trades taking place on the bullish side (mostly via put sales).

However, one trade stuck out on the call side.

That’s as the trader purchased $2.56 million worth of the September $110 calls, which were slightly out-of-the-money at the time of the trade. Expiring in about two months, the trader is looking for an upside rally to send Nike higher, with this roughly at-the-money position set to benefit from a rise in the share price.

This article originally appeared on Fintel

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.