Behind Today's Massive Melt Up: The Biggest Call Buying Spree In History
Heading into this afternoon's blow off top, which saw the S&P close at the highest level since April 2022 after 6 straight days of gains (the longest winning streak since Nov 2021), the post-FOMC gamma squeeze (because apparently nobody believes or is scared of Powell any more) was in full blast, not just across the vanilla Greek space but especially 0DTE, with the most traded option of the day being the SPY 440 (S&P4,400) Call expiring today, and for good reason: opening at 14 cents, it was up 3,050% to $3.15 when we snapshotted it just before the close...
Today's most traded option (volume > 350,000 contracts):
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 15, 2023
SPY June 440 Calls expiring today
... or how to gamma squeeze the entire market pic.twitter.com/imPj6ZS5IU
... with over 350,000 contracts traded: a massive amount, one which together with all the other calls bought in sympathy, forced dealers - who as we warned one week ago turned short gamma to the tune of $1.2BN and rising with every tick higher in spoos - to delta hedge with a frenzied SPY and Emini buying spree, creating a positive feedback loop similar to the gamma squeeze forced by SoftBank in Aug 2020.