24 July 2026 — EOD read. Friday closed the week with a split tape: the broad market finished fractionally green while tech absorbed the session’s selling, and the options tape spent the day pricing protection rather than exits. Here is what printed and how we read it.
- Tech sold, the broad tape held: QQQ -1.12%, SPY +0.10%, VIX eased to 18.58.
- Puts out-traded calls on both index ETFs; NBIS drew roughly $52M of earnings-dated put premium.
- QQQ $682.48 is the level to watch; six of eight Thursday prints confirmed as real positioning.
What happened
SPY added 0.10% to close at $738.93 after tagging $743.72 in the morning and giving nearly all of it back — the close sat about $1.64 off the session low of $737.29. QQQ never saw green: it opened below Thursday’s close, slid to $682.48 in the afternoon, and finished at $684.23, down 1.12% — a wide single-day gap between the two indices. NVDA eased 0.92% to $206.84 on put volume roughly a third above its 30-day average. The vol gauge shrugged at all of it: VIX closed at 18.58, down on the day, after an early look at 19.05.
Market-wide, 39.1M calls traded against 34.0M puts — a 0.87 put/call by volume — but premium told the opposite story: $19.8B changed hands in puts against $18.0B in calls, meaning larger average tickets on the downside. Each index ETF individually ran puts over calls by volume — SPY at 1.26, QQQ at 1.18 — and both closed with net options premium in the red (-$34.7M and -$37.0M respectively). The stress asymmetry shows cleanest in implied volatility: QQQ’s IV rank sits near 76 against SPY’s 28.
Yesterday’s radar — OI confirm
Yesterday’s flagged prints, checked against this morning’s open-interest update — the tape’s own answer to whether the flow was real positioning. Thresholds: ≥40% of flagged volume became new OI = confirmed; 10–40% = partial; under 10% = not confirmed.
| Contract | Flagged | OI change overnight | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| QQQ July 24 $690 puts | 92,102 contracts, $37.2M | +4,506 (15,865 → 20,371) | Not confirmed — ~5% became OI; same-day trades and closes dominated |
| QQQ Aug $693 calls (straddle leg) | 5,663 contracts, $11.8M | +5,011 (103 → 5,114) | Confirmed opening — ~88% became new OI |
| QQQ Aug $693 puts (straddle leg) | 5,518 contracts, $11.3M | +4,855 (323 → 5,178) | Confirmed opening — ~88% became new OI |
| MU July 31 $950 puts | 1,379 contracts, $6.8M | +604 (1,465 → 2,069) | Confirmed opening — ~44% became new OI |
| GOOGL Jan ’28 $300 puts | 927 contracts, $3.5M | +745 (3,843 → 4,588) | Confirmed opening — ~80% became new OI |
| LMT Sep $570 puts | 443 contracts, $1.3M | +255 (200 → 455) | Confirmed opening — ~58% became new OI |
| NBIS Sep $320 calls | 653 contracts, $1.4M | -91 (1,496 → 1,405) | Not confirmed — OI fell; closing or same-day activity |
| FIX Aug $1,780 calls | 52 contracts, $1.0M | +47 (17 → 64) | Confirmed opening — ~90% became new OI |
Six of eight became real positioning — the August straddle and the single-name downside prints were opened and held; the expiring-day put chase and the NBIS call print were not.
Why it matters
Friday’s tape drew a line between rotation and de-risking, and the evidence landed on rotation. An index down more than a percent with VIX finishing lower is not what forced liquidation looks like. The off-exchange tape agreed: about $246M of QQQ printed at $684.23 — the closing price — right after the bell, marks at the level rather than through it, and the day’s largest single-name blocks (NFLX $121M, AVGO $82M) went up at or near market. The one seller-shaped print was DDOG: $63.9M roughly 2% below its quoted band. Our read: the flow bought insurance without hitting stock, and that distinction is the dominant tell on today’s tape.
Single-name flow keeps concentrating in dated protection. NBIS drew roughly $52M of put premium bracketing its August 6 report — including a $32.7M floor block that traded at nearly 20x the strike’s open interest — and MU’s ladder of August puts beneath a $921 stock added more rungs. Thursday’s version of the same pattern proved mostly real: six of eight flagged prints became new open interest this morning, which is the strongest confirmation rate we’ve logged since the loop began.
What to watch into Monday
- QQQ $682.48 — Friday’s low, and the level to watch. A close below would mark a second straight lower low; $691.96, Thursday’s close, is the reference on the other side, and a close back above it would retrace the entire slide.
- SPY $743.72 / $737.29 — Friday’s range. A second session of green SPY against red QQQ would extend the rotation observation; both legs inside this range would leave the split tape unresolved.
- VIX 19.05 — Friday’s intraday high. A close above it would mark an upside range break on a gauge that just finished lower on a red tech day.
- SPX 7,350–7,375 — where Friday’s July 31 put prints clustered; 7,500 remains the August shelf, now 39,530 contracts of open interest and still absorbing size.
- NBIS Monday OI update — whether Friday’s $32.7M floor block became new open interest is the tape’s own answer on the week’s largest bearish print; we score it in Monday’s post.
- NVDA $204.81 — Friday’s low. Put volume ran a third above its 30-day average; a repeat Monday would make it a pattern rather than a print.
Names on our radar
Every row below is frozen at publication and scored mechanically in the Accountability Ledger at +5 and +21 sessions — misses stay on the page. Options prints are checked against the next morning’s open-interest update in the following session’s post.
| Ticker | What printed | Read |
|---|---|---|
| NBIS | $32.7M floor block in Aug 7 $170 puts — 20,282 contracts, ~20x the strike’s open interest, all opening, three sessions before the 8/6 report | The single largest bearish print on our tape this week; unconfirmed as positioning until Monday’s OI update |
| NBIS | $16.2M more in July 31 $170 puts, swept in ascending fills | Same strike, nearer date — the day’s downside premium totals ~$52M against a $187.77 close |
| MU | Repeated prints in Aug 7 $800 puts (~$2.2M) and Aug 21 $930 puts ($1.5M) | The insurance ladder under a $921 stock keeps adding rungs; Thursday’s $950 puts confirmed as opened this morning |
| QQQ | $1.1M in July 31 $700 calls, ask-side sweeps into the afternoon slide | The one notable upside print on an index down day — struck 2.3% above Friday’s close |
| SPX | ~$3.6M added to Aug 21 7,500 puts, a strike already carrying 39,530 contracts of OI | The August hedge shelf keeps growing |
| SPXW | $2.1M in July 31 7,220 puts at ~6x the strike’s open interest | Tail protection ~2.6% below spot, dated to next Friday |
| POWL | $7.1M floor print in Feb ’27 $230 calls — at the money, a strike with almost no prior volume, ahead of the 8/3 report | Long-dated upside interest appearing where none existed |
| ORCL | $1.35M in July 31 $120 puts with the stock at $114.85 | In-the-money downside prints dated next Friday — protection priced for now, not later |
| DDOG | $63.9M dark-pool block at $246.86, roughly 2% below the closing quote band | The day’s one clearly seller-shaped off-exchange mark |
| NFLX | $120.9M dark-pool print at $70.09 at the closing bell | The day’s largest single-name off-exchange mark, struck at the market |
The set-up
The regime classifier still reads Sideways with the MPI at 55, and Friday fit the label: an index pair pulling in opposite directions, a vol gauge unwilling to endorse the red screen, and an options tape that paid up for dated insurance without hitting stock. What printed was protection — struck, dated, and sized around known events — while the off-exchange tape marked size at the market rather than through it. Monday’s open-interest update scores the NBIS block; the Accountability Ledger scores everything else.
Method note
Flow and dark-pool data sourced from Unusual Whales. MPI score and regime classifier are our internal composite; daily synthesis is AI-assisted from those inputs. Volume-over-OI activity is unconfirmed as new positioning until the next morning’s open-interest update; confirmations are published in the following session’s post. Index closes above are Friday’s; the MPI snapshot is keyed to Thursday’s close, as the composite updates on a one-session lag.
This is research, not advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security.
AZTMM HLDGS LLC is not a registered broker-dealer, investment adviser, or FINRA member. All content is retrospective research published for general circulation — not personalized advice, not trade signals. Options involve substantial risk, including losses that may exceed the initial investment. Full disclaimer.
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