While Riot Blockchain Inc (NASDAQ:RIOT) is taking a breather during today’s trading, the equity, along with other cryptocurrency and blockchain-related names, has surged on the back of Bitcoin’s highly-publicized rally in the last 12 months. Now, as this win streak cools, the cryptocurrency is taking RIOT with it, though not before attracting the attention of the options market.
This is evidenced by RIOT’s place on Schaeffer’s Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White’s list of stocks with the highest option volume over the past 10 days. Names highlighted in yellow are new to the list, including RIOT. According to this data, 468,238 calls and 237,513 puts were exchanged in the last two weeks. Most popular during this time period were the February 70 call and the weekly 2/12 40-strike call.
During today’s trading, however, puts are gaining on calls with 88,000 of the former and 93,000 of the latter exchanged. The most popular are the week 2/26 55- and 60-strike puts, with positions being opened at both.
The recent uptick in call trading is unusual, per RIOT’s 50-day call/put volume ratio of 2.34 at the Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), which sits in the 79th percentile in its annual range.
Circling back to RIOT’s recent surge — and subsequent collapse — on the charts, the equity just climbed to a nine-year high of $79.50 on Feb. 17 after bouncing off its 30-day moving average. While this level has proved elusive since then, and at last check the stock is down 7.1% at $66.26, it still boats a year-to-date lead of 289.1%.
