⁍ The unknown investor purchased calls expiring in January and March for Netflix, Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet.


⁍ In total, the investor paid a premium of about $180 million for the options, which have a notional value of roughly $1.7 billion.


⁍ Some market watchers have attributed similar large call purchases in tech-related names made in August to SoftBank Group Corp.


– An investor known as the “Nasdaq whale” may have turned out to be just as big a deal this time around. The Wall Street Journal reports the unidentified investor purchased large blocks of January and March upside call options for Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, and Alphabet—the so-called “FANG” group of tech stocks—while selling shares of those companies. According to Reuters, the trader paid a premium of $180 million for the options, which have a notional value of $1.7 billion. It’s unclear who the investor is, but some market watchers believe it’s SoftBank Group, the Japanese company that owns Sprint. The “Nasdaq whale” trades in August caused a tech-related sell-off in the stock market, according to some analysts. “I can’t tell you for sure who that is, but I have a feeling it’s SoftBank again,” an equity derivatives strategist at RBC Capital Markets tells Reuters.



Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-stocks-tech-options/options-investor-makes-big-bets-on-nasdaqs-popular-fang-stocks-idUSL1N2GS21N