Strategy options: Nov. 6 $146 call prints 1,000 contracts in one trade, put/call ratio 0.75 above its 20-day average
I'm LongbridgeAI, I can summarize articles.Options on $Strategy(MSTR.US)$ traded 246,000 contracts on Thursday, Oct. 29 — 140,800 calls against 105,200 puts, for a put/call ratio of 0.75. That ratio sits above its 20-day average of 0.64 and still inside a 0.44 to 0.83 range. Total volume was 0.57 times the 20-day average of 434,000 contracts; calls ran at 0.51 times their average and puts at 0.66 times.
Open interest (OI) totalled 2.502 million contracts: 1.401 million calls and 1.101 million puts. The put/call OI ratio of 0.79 is in line with its 20-day average and still inside a 0.76 to 0.82 range.
The large trades
Six trades cleared the screen among the 120 contracts with strikes roughly 5.2% to 13.0% away from the close, spanning five expiries, for $4.08 million in premium. The filter required full-session volume of at least 500 contracts, premium of at least $100,000 and a volume-to-open-interest ratio of 2.0 or higher. It also required 7 to 90 days to expiration and an absolute delta between 0.15 and 0.80. Calls took four of the six and $3.15 million of the premium, or 77%; two puts supplied the remaining $931,000.
All six sat on the Nov. 6 expiry, eight days out, at strikes between $138 and $147. Absolute delta ran from 0.39 to 0.54, close to at-the-money.
Trades worth flagging
| Contract | Full-session volume | Largest print | Open interest | Vol/OI | Premium | Side |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov. 6 $146 call | 2,359 | 1,000 | 457 | 5.16 | $1.13M | at the ask |
| Nov. 6 $141 call | 1,120 | 436 | 189 | 5.93 | $777,000 | at the ask |
| Nov. 6 $145 call | 1,219 | 100 | 588 | 2.07 | $676,000 | at the bid |
The Nov. 6 $146 call traded 2,359 contracts on the session, 5.16 times its 457 open interest — a reading that points to newly opened exposure rather than a rotation of existing positions. Only the next session's change in open interest can confirm it. Volume clustered in the half hour from 2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET, 42% of the full session. The tape sample covers 9:30 a.m. to 3:59 p.m. ET in 185 prints totalling 2,359 contracts, or 100% of the session. Its largest print was 1,000 contracts at 2:50 p.m. ET, at the ask, equal to 42% of full-session volume; 70% of the sample went off at the ask.
The $141 call carried the highest volume-to-open-interest ratio of the six at 5.93, against open interest of just 189 contracts. Trading was almost entirely at the open: 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. ET held 85% of the session, and one 436-contract print at 9:58 a.m. ET went off at the ask for 39% of the day's volume. Across its final 175 prints, 100% of the session, the split was 49% at the ask and 51% at the bid, so the two sides largely offset.
The $145 call traded 1,219 contracts against 588 in open interest, a vol/OI of 2.07. Its volume was the most dispersed of the three: the busiest half hour, 2 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET, held only 17%. Among its final 240 prints, 100% of the session, 79% went off at the bid, the mirror image of the $146 call.
Open interest and volatility
Within the screened universe, call open interest is heaviest at the $135 strike with 42,799 contracts, followed by $140 at 13,774 and $145 at 5,569. Puts are thickest at $140 with 9,463, then $145 with 8,920 and $135 with 7,889. The two sides overlap between $135 and $145, the range the options market is pricing around.
30-day at-the-money implied volatility (IV) finished at 67.4%, below the 71.1% historical volatility on the same contract. Using the 85% straddle convention, straddle pricing on the Nov. 27 expiry implies a move of roughly ±12.9%, a band of $123 to $160.
How to read this, and how not to
A large call trade is not, by itself, evidence that institutions are bullish. The same fill can come from a covered-call writer, one leg of a spread, or a hedge against a long stock position. Direction needs at least three confirmations: whether the trade went off at the bid or the ask, whether open interest rises the following session, and whether the opposing strike saw size at the same time. This article reports publicly available trade data and the screen used to select it. It is not investment advice.
Source: publicly reported U.S. options trades. Coverage window: regular U.S. trading hours, Oct. 29, 2026. Universe: 5 expiries within 7 to 90 days (Nov. 6, Nov. 13, Nov. 20, Nov. 27, Dec. 4), 120 contracts with strikes roughly ±5.2% to ±13.0% from the close. Screen: full-session volume of at least 500 contracts, premium of at least $100,000, volume-to-open-interest ratio of 2.0 or higher; 7 to 90 days to expiration; absolute delta between 0.15 and 0.80.