Market Summary
SPY closed at $569.92, up 1.14% as tech led a broad recovery from last week's selling. The semiconductor sector was the clear leader with NVDA up 3.2%, AMD up 2.7%, and AVGO up 2.1%. The rally was driven by growing anticipation around NVIDIA's GTC conference beginning March 24, where CEO Jensen Huang is expected to unveil the next-generation Blackwell Ultra architecture.
VIX fell 5.8% to 17.99, reversing last week's spike. Total options volume surged to 52.1 million contracts, the highest reading in two weeks, with the bulk concentrated in semiconductor names.
Unusual Activity
NVDA was the center of the options universe today. Call volume hit 1.8 million contracts, roughly 2.4x the 20-day average. The most active strike was the $950 call expiring March 28 (GTC week), with 31,200 contracts and a Vol/OI ratio of 67.4x. This is speculative pre-event positioning with heavy premium commitment — over $22 million spent at this strike alone.
AMD saw sympathetic call buying with 14,600 contracts at the $165 strike for April 11 (22.3x Vol/OI). The AMD flow looked more like institutional accumulation than retail speculation, with large block trades throughout the session.
AVGO rounded out the semiconductor sweep with 7,800 calls at the $190 strike (15.6x Vol/OI). Broadcom benefits indirectly from the AI spending cycle, and traders appear to be positioning for a halo effect from any positive GTC announcements.
GEX Shifts
The heavy call buying across semiconductors caused a meaningful GEX shift. NVDA flipped from neutral to positive GEX as dealers absorbed the new call positions. When dealers are long gamma, they sell into rallies and buy dips, which tends to dampen realized volatility. This is counterintuitively a stabilizing signal despite the aggressive directional bets.
AMD's GEX moved to neutral from slightly negative, a modest improvement. SPY GEX remains positive but the concentration shifted higher, from the $565-570 zone to $568-573, reflecting the market's upward drift.
Covered Call Opportunity
Today's rally created fresh covered call opportunities. If you own semiconductor names and were waiting for a bounce to write calls, this is the kind of session to act on. NVDA April 4 $980 calls (8.5% OTM) are paying $14.20/share, an annualized yield of 38.4%. AMD April 11 $165 calls (8.8% OTM) offer $4.10/share at 31.5% annualized.
One caution: NVDA options expiring during or after GTC week carry significant event risk. If you want pure income without event exposure, look at the March 21 expiration instead — you still collect meaningful premium ($6.80 at the $960 strike) and expire before the keynote.