Apple Inc. (AAPL) weekly options are hot on the first day of the WWDC
Tech titan Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is down 0.9% at $127.56, as Wall Street is apparently unimpressed with the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) revelations thus far. Meanwhile, AAPL option traders are rushing to place bets on where the stock will end the week.
Both AAPL calls and puts are running hotter than normal, and the equity's 30-day at-the-money implied volatility has jumped 6.6% to 21.4%. Weekly 6/12 options -- which expire at Friday's close -- are dominant, accounting for eight of the 10 most active contracts today.
On the call side, speculators are buying to open weekly 6/12 128- and 129-strike calls, which will move into the money if AAPL topples the respective strikes by the end of the week. Meanwhile, short-term bears are buying to open weekly 6/12 127- and 129-strike puts to roll the dice on additional downside this week.
Prior to today's highly anticipated WWDC, AAPL speculators were placing bearish bets at a faster-than-usual clip. On the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), the security's 10-day put/call volume ratio of 0.56 sits just 4 percentage points from an annual high.
However, now is an opportune time to place short-term bets on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). The equity's Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 20% stands higher than just 15% of all other readings from the past year, suggesting near-term options are attractively priced right now, from a historical standpoint. Likewise, the stock's Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS) of 85 indicates that AAPL has tended to make outsized moves on the charts during the past 12 months, relative to what the options market has priced in.