Meta Platform’s AI efforts look like a recipe for a comeback after nearly a year of slump for the $1.7 trillion company’s stock.
mark zuckerberg stock social media giant It soared more than 6% on Friday, its highest level since April, extending a rally that began earlier this month when the company detailed plans to sell access to its AI computing power. The company on Thursday launched Muse Spark 1.1, an AI coding product that competes with Anthropic and OpenAI. Meta’s stock price has been flat since the beginning of the year, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 is up 18%.
Option traders flocked Friday, with volume more than triple the 30-day average and 78% of the stock’s $1.8 billion in option premium tied to calls, according to data from Cboe LiveVol and SpotGamma. Some of the call buying was likely offset by selling, with as many calls selling as buying, but there were more than twice as many calls buying than puts, and eight of the top 10 contracts by volume were calls as of midday.
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The five most popular deals, all with contracts expiring Friday afternoon, were aimed at quickly extending early gains. The best deal, a $675 strike call that expires on Friday, trades at about $3 per contract, and the meta needs to add another 2% before the bell.
The most actively traded contract expiring after Friday is the 700 strike on July 17, a trade that requires a 6% down payment to break even.
Although the bulls had the upper hand in short-term trading, at least one major trader undermined the notion of big swings in either direction. The second-biggest trade of the session was someone selling a total of $29 million in both puts and calls on the 670 strike, betting that the stock will remain in that position for the next two months.
