📖 Receipts: WMT
Back in late July the flow was already telling on WMT. Monday 7/20, a slow build starts on the 104p 8/21 — quiet at first, then $80,080 in premium stacking up by 7/22 as OI climbed from 0 to 921. Nobody was talking about Walmart being weak. The stock was still riding high off its May all-time high.
Then on 7/21, a much bigger tell: 101p 8/28 printed $443,520 in a single session, open interest jumping from 5 to 5,125 essentially overnight. That’s not someone rolling a hedge. That’s a fresh, sized bearish bet on a defensive consumer-staples name that most of the Street still had rated a buy.
Today WMT reported Q2 earnings — beat on both revenue and EPS — and the stock dropped 9% anyway. Comp sales missed, guidance raised less than hoped, and the market punished it. The whales who built those put positions in the back half of July weren’t reacting to bad news; they were ahead of it. That’s the entire point of oit whale watching.
🐋 Whales to Watch — 8/19 & 8/20:
TODAY’s FREEBIE
PWR puts, bearish — clean, no earnings until late October
Two big legs back to back, same expiry, strike moved down, size moved up. No earnings nearby, nothing public that explains it yet; the one with the most ‘hm’ and the most size.
• 8/18: bearish put 580p 10/16, 18% OTM, $1,161,375 prem, vol 1,425 / oi 65
• 8/19, 7:29 AM: bearish put 560p 10/16, 16% OTM, $1,688,210 prem, vol 2,006 / oi 18
YEET PLUS: THREE MORE SELECTIONS INCLUDING A WELLS FARGO WHISPER