Today in our options recap we marvel about the moonshot move AAPL stock has had since it briefly breached $120, and is soaring today above $131 ahead of its expected quarterly earnings release tomorrow after the bell.
July 129 calls traded in good size on Friday (now expired), and these options would have been squarely in the money given today’s move, and again we emphasize this is all occurring ahead of earnings (a 10% move in the stock from trough to peak at today’s levels inside of eight trading sessions).
In what has to be related activity there has also been sizable options trading in XLK (SPDR Technology Select Sector, Expense Ratio 0.15%), which is of course the largest U.S. Technology focused ETF in the U.S. listed landscape with more than $13 billion in assets under management.
The September 45 strike calls traded more than 46,000 times last Friday and these options are out-of-the-money at current levels with XLK trading with a $43 handle, but a
bullish bet nonetheless on potential additional upside in the Tech sector.
AAPL of course is the largest weighting in XLK with a hefty >18% weighting, dwarfing the next largest holdings in the product MSFT (8.91%) and VZ (4.77%). All eyes will continue to be on the out-performing AAPL and its potential implications on related ETFs such as XLK throughout the balance of today’s and tomorrow’s trading sessions ahead of earnings.