Wut doing January 16, 2026 $125 Put?
What's up everyone! Hope you're enjoying your holidays!
During today's trading session someone pointed out to me the -GME260116P125 trading volume was heavy. When the market closed I started reviewing the largest option orders of the day (by $ amount) and I noticed that none of the $125 puts were on it. So I decided to take a closer look.
This is the daily chart for the January 16, 2026 $125 puts. Activity started picking up right on our November 15th OPEX and then it really started picking up with that big red candle on November 19th.
The 6 largest volume days above are November 19th, December 2nd and 3rd, December 13th, December 23rd, and today December 31.
A little odd that volume starts randomly picking up like that for a Put contract with a $125 strike price. What's even stranger - take a look at how these things trade on the 1 minute chart.
This explains why I didn't see these trades when I was reviewing todays largest orders. It looks like someone, or someone(s), is trading these in batches of 3, 6, and 12.
Maybe its just a bunch of random people looking to spend $10,000/each on a few Put contracts? Maybe someone is trying to stay under the radar by trading small throughout the day? Or maybe they're being used by an entity to fill some purpose on an as-needed basis.
Let's take a look at the Time & Sales:
-GME260116P125 Time and Sales 12/31/2024
SPHR = MIAX Sapphire Exchange launched by Miami International Holdings on August 12, 2024.
MCRY = ISE Mercury Exchange by International Securities Exchange, acquired by Nasdaq in 2016.
DEX = DEX Limited, little information is available on this exchange. I can't tell if they operate out of the United Arab Emirates or the Caymans. Would love to find out more about this exchange.
IT = International Securities Exchange
PH = Nasdaq Phillidelphia
P = NYSE
B and Z = CBOE Exchange
Now, the last time these contracts traded like this was between *drumroll please*.... you guessed it, July 16th - August 15th. Take a look:
In the middle there you can see the trading activity on these January 16, 2026 $125 puts pick back up again right on our July OPEX, just like this past month. That first larger red candle there in the middle is July 16th, which is reminiscent of what we saw on November 15th.
On the lefthand side you'll see heavy trading days on May 24, May 28, June 6, and June 7.
When did these calls become available? May 15th.
Now to put all this trading above into perspective, look at what happened on May 23rd:
As you can see, that May 23rd candle completely overshadows all the trading that's occurred after it. 1700 contracts were traded that day on May 23rd.
To me, these $125 contracts are being used for a purpose and it isn't just retail just jumping into the January 17th $125 calls either.
The following expiries have $125 contracts - January 17th 2024, June 20 2024, and January 16th 2025. Those 3 dates have high call volume for the $125 strike, but only the January 16th 2025 date has abnormal put volume at the $125 strike.
I have my theories, which I know I share with many of you, but I'm open to hearing everyone's thoughts on this.