SpaceX options shatter first-day volume record
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- SpaceX options debuted on Tuesday with the most aggressive first-day trading activity ever, hitting ~10,000 contracts per minute early on and tracking toward ~2 million total volume, according to Cboe Global Markets VP Henry Schwartz
- The previous first-day options record was set by Meta in 2012 with ~364,000 contracts — a fraction of SpaceX's projected Day 1 volume
- SpaceX options ranked as the third-largest single-stock options holding among Apex Fintech Solutions clients, trailing only Tesla and Nvidia
- Investors skewed bullish, with the put-call ratio at ~0.7; the $220 strike calls expiring Thursday were the most popular at ~60,000 contracts
- More striking: $380 strike calls expiring Thursday saw 30,000+ contracts traded — requiring SpaceX shares to rise 80%+ before Thursday's close, since the market is closed Friday for Juneteenth
- SpaceX shares finished Tuesday at $201.80, up 49.5% from the $135 IPO price, with only ~4% of total shares freely available to trade — a small free float that amplifies price moves
- SpotGamma founder Brent Kochuba and Apex's Mike Treacy cautioned that many of the calls may be being sold for risk management or used in complex multi-leg strategies rather than as straightforward moonshot bets
Why it matters: With SpaceX shares already up 49.5% from the $135 IPO price and only ~4% of total shares freely available to trade, even modest hedging flows through options and ETFs can supercharge the stock's moves. Derivatives experts say much of the heavy call volume may be institutional positioning or multi-leg hedging, not retail euphoria — which means the 'moonshot' narrative oversimplifies a far more mechanical dynamic at work.
