Investors discover their new favorite consumer AI play in Meta. Options volume is surging — SkimNews
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- Meta options saw trading volume hit 4.5x the 30-day average on Monday, with about $3.9 billion in total premium exchanged across Cboe LiveVol and SpotGamma data, and call volume likely running more than twice put volume.
- Meta shares surged 12% Monday to within 7% of their August 2025 all-time high, extending a 21% rally that began when the company unveiled its Muse AI personal agent.
- Muse launched Sep. 8 and racked up 730,000 downloads in roughly five days, topping app store charts per Sensor Tower analytics cited by CNBC.
- SpotGamma founder Brent Kochuba called the inflows "huge" and attributed them to "AI hype around their Muse," noting seven of the day's top 10 trades were bullish or neutral.
- The most actively traded contracts were zero-day-to-expiry in-the-money calls ranging from 720 to 745 strikes, with heavy volume also in 775- and 800-strike calls expiring mid-October.
- Meta separately announced plans for "Petal," a subsea cable project to transmit data across the Atlantic Ocean.
- The session's largest dollar trader took a roughly $20 million net short position via a 710/765-strike call spread expiring Oct. 16 that profits if Meta slips below $740.
Why it matters: Options traders are positioning Meta as the consumer AI trade, funneling 4.5x normal volume into calls Monday and lifting the stock 12% in a single session on Muse's early app-store traction. But the largest single trade of the day was a roughly $20 million bearish hedge via an October spread — a signal that even heavy upside bettors expect a pullback if shares fail to hold above $740.
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