Options Trading News

Option volume is very strong in Apple as shares are now down to the lowest levels since May.

More than 715,000 AAPL options have changed hands so far today, with 395,000 calls. That is the second-highest volume on the option market today, already eclipsing its full-session average of the last month and trailing only the SPDR S&P 500 Fund (SPY).

The top options in play are the weekly out-of-the-money calls that only have two days left to trade. The 560, 570, and 580 calls all see more than 22,000 contracts trade, and all three have open interest of fewer than 7,000, so these are new positions. The 565 and 570 calls are also in play with more than 16,000 contracts each.

Again, given the action and the time to expiration this appears to be intraday trading looking to capture very short-term moves. While calls still outpace puts overall in the name, the put/call ratio is significantly higher than the 20-day average of 0.61.

AAPL is down another 3.6 percent today, trading now at $559.27--leaving it firmly in a bear-market territory, down more than 20 percent from its all-time high. It has been sliding since breaking above that $700 mark and it has closed above its 10-day moving average only once since then.