13 August 2026 — EOD read. A green Thursday with the Nasdaq complex out front, a low VIX print, and a closing tape that was heavier in the dark pool than it was in the options chain.
- Both indices closed higher; QQQ led with a 1.16% gain and finished near its high.
- Market-wide flow ran call-heavy, but SPY and QQQ printed close to one-to-one.
- NVDA drew a $518M closing block thirteen days ahead of its earnings date.
What happened
SPY closed at 777.88, up 0.70% from Wednesday’s 772.49, with a 774.11–779.37 range. QQQ did the heavier lifting: 732.07, up 1.16% from 723.70, and it travelled nearly ten handles from a 724.03 low to a 733.96 high before settling near the top of that band. VIX printed 14.63, barely changed from 14.55 and still parked at the low end of its year. NVDA added 0.54% to $225.30.
The market-wide chain looked decisively one-sided: 40.2 million calls against 27.5 million puts for a 0.68 put/call ratio, and $25.7B of call premium against $16.1B of put premium. The index ETFs did not echo it. SPY’s own tape ran a 0.95 put/call with net premium at negative $22.4M; QQQ ran 0.91 with net premium negative $8.8M. That gap is the thing we flagged in flow today — the broad tape bought calls, while the two instruments people actually hedge with traded roughly even and leaked premium to the put side.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PANW Dec 2027 $390 calls | 760 | +636 | Confirmed opening |
| NVDA Aug 21 $220 calls | 19,967 | −6,028 | Not confirmed |
| NVDA Aug 21 $225 puts | 10,211 | +4,055 | Partially confirmed |
| CRWV Mar 2027 $130 calls | 3,771 | +3,166 | Confirmed opening |
| TLT Jul 2027 $82 puts | 6,050 | +6,009 | Confirmed opening |
| MU Aug 14 $925 calls | 8,310 | +1,237 | Partially confirmed |
| SNDK Dec 18 $2,220 calls | 182 | +113 | Confirmed opening |
| META Aug 14 $585 puts | 4,143 | +2,019 | Confirmed opening |
The long-dated structures stuck and the near-dated chase did not: five of eight became new open interest, while the NVDA August $220 calls actually saw open interest fall by roughly 6,000 contracts against 20,000 traded — that was closing and rolling, not accumulation. The $225 puts one strike up went the other way.
Why it matters
Our read: the block activity was the dominant tell on today’s tape, not the options chain. The 4:00 PM print carried an unusual amount of size — NVDA moved 2.3 million shares in a single $518M block at $225.30, and AMGN printed 1.16 million shares for $486M at $417.84, a block equal to roughly 48% of the stock’s entire session volume. IREN went through twice at $44.76 for a combined $727M across 16.2 million shares, both below the prevailing bid. MSFT stacked three prints totalling $582M. An IVV block moved $938M at $781.31, about 30% of that fund’s day.
Set against the flow, the picture is a market whose visible chain leaned long while its size went off-exchange at the bell. The single-name prints that showed conviction on the ask were mostly long-dated — PLTR December 2027 $180 calls across three fills for roughly $6.8M, DRAM January 2027 $57 calls for about $8.1M in sweeps, NOW March 2027 $120 calls at $2.4M. The most notable put print was also long-dated and on the ask: NVDA June 2027 $240 puts for $3.4M, thirteen calendar days ahead of a 26 August earnings date. That is a hedge with a horizon, not a reaction.
What to watch into Friday
- SPY 779.37 — today’s high, and the level to watch above. A close through it would mark a fresh high for the move; 774.11 is today’s low and the reference on the other side.
- QQQ 733.96 — the session high, reached late. QQQ closed within two points of it, so a Friday open above that mark would extend a three-day sequence of higher highs.
- VIX 14.63 — a fourth straight session under 15. A move back above that handle would be the first sign the low-volatility stretch is loosening.
- NVDA $227.23 — today’s high, and the level that matters into the 26 August report. The June 2027 $240 puts that printed on the ask sit well above spot; their open interest tomorrow will show whether that was new positioning.
- AMGN and IREN — both drew blocks that were large relative to their own daily volume. Where those names open Friday is the cleanest observation on whether the size was accumulation or distribution.
- SPY put/call at 0.95 — the index ETF ran far heavier on puts than the 0.68 market-wide figure. A second day of that divergence 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 |
|---|---|---|
| NVDA | Jun 2027 $240 puts, $3.4M entirely on the ask (1,607 vs 2,674 OI); separately a $518M block, 2.3M shares at $225.30 into the close | Long-dated downside bought ahead of 26 Aug earnings, alongside the day’s largest single-name block. The two point opposite ways. |
| PLTR | Dec 2027 $180 calls, three fills totalling ~$6.8M; two entirely ask-side | Repeat ascending and descending fills at the same strike. Volume ran above open interest on each print. |
| DRAM | Jan 2027 $57 calls, ~$8.1M across two sweep clusters, $4.7M of it on the ask | Sweeps rather than blocks, in a small fund. Volume of 12,200 against 2,382 open interest. |
| NOW | Mar 2027 $120 calls $2.4M ($1.9M ask-side); Jun 2027 $130 calls $1.1M | Two long-dated strikes bracketing a $127 spot. The March line traded at a quarter of its open interest. |
| TEAM | Oct $170 puts, $1.08M, all on the bid — 557 contracts against 9 open interest | A 62x volume-over-OI ratio in a line with almost nothing outstanding. Bid-side fills throughout. |
| ARKK | Dec $88 calls, $1.2M, entirely bid-side — 2,344 contracts against 101 open interest | A 23x ratio on the bid. Direction of the print and direction of the strike disagree. |
| AMGN | $486M dark-pool block, 1.16M shares at $417.84 | Roughly 48% of the name’s full-session volume in one off-exchange print. The largest relative block on today’s tape. |
| IREN | Two blocks at $44.76 totalling ~$727M across 16.2M shares, both below the prevailing bid | Size printed under the bid twice within twenty minutes of the close, against a 46M-share 30-day average. |
| TSLA | Aug 21 $325 calls, $2.2M, effectively all on the bid with spot at $338.71 | Deep in-the-money calls sold into on a near-dated expiry. What printed looks like a position being taken off. |
| SPY | Nov $745 puts, $1.57M, entirely ask-side | Downside bought roughly 4% below spot with a three-month horizon, on a day the index closed green. |
The set-up
The desk-flow tape said two things at once today. The visible options chain was call-heavy and the indices closed green, with QQQ carrying the day. Underneath that, the largest prints were off-exchange and clustered in the final minutes, and the most decisive ask-side option prints in single names were long-dated puts — NVDA into earnings, SPY out to November. Our read is that this was a quiet up-day on the surface with meaningful repositioning underneath it, and yesterday’s confirmations support that framing: what stuck overnight were the multi-quarter structures, not the near-dated momentum. The open-interest update on today’s flagged contracts publishes in tomorrow’s post.
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. Index and single-name levels are official closing prints for 13 August 2026; daily moves are computed close-over-close. 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.
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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