Stocks, options, and an unhealthy need to understand why things move. Posts are data-heavy, opinions are my own, charts are dark mode only.
Joined February 2018
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Is the Situational Awareness Fund still alive? Haven’t seen anyone talking about it lately.
Did everyone forget about it after the AI selloff?
$INTC down nearly 50% in a month and the CEO just bought $9.7M of his own stock (per Stocktwits). That's the headline for me right now.
What caught my eye is that this dip isn't even Intel specific. ASML dropped 10.7% this week, TSM down 8.3%, AMD fell nearly 14%, and XLK as a whole is off 12.2% this month. The whole semiconductor supply chain is getting crushed. But Intel is getting crushed harder than everyone else, and that's the uncomfortable part.
Because the fundamentals aren't clean enough to call this an obvious buy. Revenue is growing at 21% (per Yahoo Finance) but profit margins are sitting at negative 20%. Forward P/E is 32.4 against AMD's 30 and NVDA's 12.5, which is wild when you consider NVDA is growing revenue at 105% and Intel is not. the multiple compression story here still has room to run if earnings don't start inflecting.
RSI is at 22.8 though (per Yahoo Finance). That's deeply oversold territory. And with Blackrock holding 426M shares and Vanguard at 285M, institutions aren't exactly running for the exits. The options market tells a different story. Put IV at 356% vs call IV at 246% (per Yahoo Finance options data) suggests the hedging activity is intense heading into 2026.
Lip-Bu Tan buying nearly $10M at $95 and the stock sitting at $58 today. Either he's early, or he knows something the market doesn't yet.
$CBRS sitting at its 52-week low of $91.85 today and I genuinely don't know what to do with this one. Down 70% from its high, 47% just this month (per Yahoo Finance). That is a brutal, sustained unwind.
But here's what caught my eye. 11 analysts, consensus strong buy, mean price target of $275 with UBS specifically calling 159% upside from here (per TIKR). That's not one rogue bull. That's basically the whole street aligned on one side while the stock craters through every support level in sight. The disconnect is wild.
And the RSI sitting at 25.1 tells you this thing is deeply oversold technically. But oversold can stay oversold, especially with 18% short float (per Yahoo Finance) and what looks like active tax-loss selling pressure heading into year end per that Investing.com piece. The shorts aren't panicking yet, short ratio is only 2.3 so there's no obvious squeeze setup here right now.
What I keep coming back to is the revenue. 74% growth on $680M is real (per Yahoo Finance). The beat on last earnings, coming in at -$0.046 vs the -$0.18 estimate, was actually significant. And that headline about Nvidia struggling on decode for giant models while Cerebras fetches "3 to 5x" premium pricing on fast tokens... that's a real competitive angle that the market seems to be completely ignoring right now. 👀
Gotta look into the $6.95M insider sale more. Timing on that is not great.
$MU 955C exp 10/30
Volume: 16,340 vs OI: 833 (19.6x)
Premium: ~$7.6M
Someone just lit $7.6M on fire buying deeply OTM calls expiring tomorrow on MU, paying 71% IV for a 0.23 delta lottery ticket. This is either the most reckless earnings gamble of the week or someone knows exactly what Micron is about to say
$MU 795P exp 11/4
Volume: 45,259 vs OI: 990 (45.7x)
Premium: ~$9.3M
Selling a nearly ATM put on expiration day at 123% IV is pure theta farming at its most aggressive. Someone just collected massive premium banking on MU not cracking today, and with vol this juiced they are printing if it holds.
$AAPL 342.5P exp 10/30
Volume: 96,743 vs OI: 9,429 (10.3x)
Premium: ~$7.0M
Selling a nearly ATM put on expiration day at 54% IV is pure theta harvesting at its most aggressive, collecting maximum decay with zero time left for the trade to go wrong. Someone just printed cash on a bet that AAPL holds this level into
BREAKING 🚨: Elon Musk @elonmusk just lost the Texas Senate race to James Talarico @jamestalarico by a landslide!
$GOOGL 285C exp 10/30
Volume: 46,161 vs OI: 199 (232.0x)
Premium: ~$10.2M
Someone just threw ten million dollars at a near-the-money GOOGL call expiring tomorrow, paying 52% IV for a one-day lottery. This is pure binary event positioning, likely around an imminent catalyst, and the 232x volume to OI ratio confirm
$GOOGL 275P exp 11/4
Volume: 9,300 vs OI: 706 (13.2x)
Premium: ~$1.2M
Someone dropped over a million dollars on a near-the-money put expiring tomorrow, 13x the open interest. This is not a hedge, this is a targeted bet that GOOGL drops hard before close, likely around a catalyst they already know about.
$MRVL 182.5C exp 11/6
Volume: 3,857 vs OI: 540 (7.1x)
Premium: ~$1.2M
Someone dropped over a million dollars on a deeply OTM 3-day lottery ticket at 112% IV, paying an absurd vol premium for MRVL to rip 7% by Friday. This is pure binary event positioning, someone knows something or is making a very loud bet o
$MRVL just dropped 40% in a month and I genuinely think the market is pricing in a slowdown that isn't showing up in the actual numbers.
What caught my eye was the forward P/E sitting at 23x with 50% earnings growth (per Yahoo Finance). That math doesn't add up to me. The stock is trading like growth is decelerating hard but analysts are modeling $7.36 in forward EPS against $3.04 trailing. That's not a company falling apart. That's a company being dragged down with everything else.
And the XLK selloff context matters here. The sector is down 11.9% this month, $NVDA is getting crushed, $MSFT and $AMZN both dropped nearly 3% just this week. So part of this is just the tape being absolutely brutal to anything AI adjacent. But MRVL's custom silicon relationship with AMZN is a real revenue story, not a narrative one. That doesn't disappear in a macro selloff.
The RSI at 28.6 is about as oversold as it gets without something being fundamentally broken. 41 analysts maintain strong buy with a mean target of $321 (per analyst consensus via Yahoo). BlackRock holds 85M shares and Vanguard holds nearly 58M. These aren't tourists. The insiders sold in the $200s though which is worth noting 👀
$157 support is the level I'm watching. If that holds, this setup is hard to ignore.
$MRVL sitting at RSI 28.6 (per Barchart) while 41 analysts have a mean price target of $321.87 (per Yahoo Finance). That gap is just wild to me. The stock is down 46% from its highs and the analyst community is basically saying it should be double from here.
What caught my eye is how broad this selloff is. XLK is down 11.9% this month, NVDA dropped 3.5% just this week, AMZN off 2.8%. This isn't a Marvell story, this is a macro flush across everything AI-adjacent. And when the whole sector reprices like this, the babies get thrown out with the bathwater.
But here's the thing. Forward P/E of 23.2x on 36% revenue growth and 50% earnings growth (per Yahoo Finance) is genuinely cheap for what MRVL is building. AMZN is a custom silicon partner, MSFT is a cloud customer. These aren't speculative relationships. The custom ASIC opportunity with hyperscalers is real and it's already showing up in the numbers.
Insiders sold in the $200s range recently which I can't fully ignore. But BlackRock holds 85M+ shares and Vanguard is right behind them at 57M (per Yahoo Finance). The institutions aren't running 👀
$157 support is the level I'm watching. If that gives way this gets messier.
$MRVL is in a real gross margin inflection, but operating leverage has not arrived, and the revenue multiple has not corrected enough to price that gap honestly.
Gross margin went from 41.3% in FY2025 to 53.1% in the most recent quarter, five consecutive periods of expansion: 50.4%, 51.6%, 51.7%, 52.1%, 53.1%. That is a structural move, not noise. The problem sits below it. Operating margin peaked at 18.7% in the January quarter, pulled back to 14.5%, and recovered only to 16.7% most recently. Revenue grew 36.5% year over year last quarter against opex growth of 40.3%. The company spent $1.90B on buybacks over four quarters and still diluted the share count 4.2%, from 862M to 898M shares.
At 17.3x price/sales against a three-year median of 11.5x, MRVL sits at the 81st percentile of its own revenue multiple history. That is expensive for a name where operating costs are compounding faster than revenue. Forward P/E of 25.47x on $7.33 in forward EPS looks reasonable in isolation, and 44 analysts carry a mean target of $340.56, but consensus is pricing in operating margin expansion the last two quarters have not delivered. The P/S multiple embedding that assumption has not normalized despite a 41% drawdown from the high.
My read is that the gross margin story is real and worth owning eventually, but not at 51% above the historical median on revenue. I would not add here.
If operating margin holds above 18.7% for two consecutive quarters with revenue growth above 30%, the leverage thesis confirms and I am wrong to wait.
$MRVL trades at 23.23x forward earnings after a 46% drawdown from its high, but the operating cost structure makes the $7.34 forward EPS number hard to trust.
Gross margin has expanded from 50.4% to 53.1% over five consecutive quarters, and quarterly revenue has grown from 2.01B to 2.74B. That part is real. The problem is opex growing 40.3% YoY against revenue growth of 36.5%, running operating leverage in reverse. Operating margin peaked at 18.7% three quarters ago and printed 16.7% in the most recent quarter. The company spent 1.90B on buybacks over the last four quarters and still diluted shareholders 4.2% net. That spend absorbed stock issuance. It did not reduce per share exposure.
The valuation split matters here. On P/E, MRVL sits at the 34th percentile of its own three year range, which looks discounted. On P/S, 15.8x against a three year median of 11.5x puts it at the 76th percentile, expensive against its own revenue history. Forty one analysts carry a strong buy with a mean target of $321.87. That consensus is priced on margin expansion the cost trend has not yet delivered. My read is the market is treating a forward multiple that assumes a cost inflection which hasn't shown up in the numbers.
If operating margin clears and holds above 19% next quarter, I am wrong. That would confirm opex is bending, the EPS path is real, and the consensus earns its conviction.
$LITE down 10% today and I'm trying to figure out if this is a gift or a warning.
What caught my eye first is the insider activity. Three separate sales between $841 and $959 per share over the last few weeks, and now the stock is sitting at $756 (per Yahoo Finance). They sold on the way down and still couldn't get out ahead of it. That's not a great look. Zero insider ownership to speak of, and 95% institutional (per Yahoo Finance), so this thing moves entirely on big money conviction.
But here's the part that's keeping me interested. Analyst mean target is $1166 with 28 buys behind it (analyst consensus via Yahoo), and revenue grew 109% last year. The AI photonics buildout is real and LITE is deep in it. NVDA keeps driving demand for optical interconnects and LITE is one of the names that feeds that chain directly. That connection still holds.
The technicals are just ugly right now though. RSI at 38.6, trading below the 20 and 50 day SMAs, and XLK is down nearly 10% on the month so this isn't isolated. The stock is also sitting right between support at $736 and resistance at $782. Not a clean setup either way.
130% call IV on those 2026 options tells me the market is pricing in a massive move from here. Someone's making a big bet this resolves higher. I think the thesis is intact but the near term pain might not be done yet.
