Intel’s shares closed at $101.35, down 3.20%.

Intel’s options market saw heavy block activity dominated by premium-selling structures. The largest trades were a $9.23 million short strangle at the $140 strike and a $3.13 million hedged short strangle combining short $110 calls and short $90 puts with long $82.50 puts. Both trades collected net credit, indicating traders are selling volatility and capping upside rather than positioning for an immediate bullish breakout, with overall order flow leaning bearish and cautious.

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Options Indicators

Intel’s implied volatility is 65.70%, while its IV percentile stands at 33.86%, which places current option pricing in a broadly neutral zone rather than an extreme. In other words, although the absolute IV level is still relatively high, it is not especially expensive versus Intel’s own recent history, and the IV/HV ratio of 0.99 suggests implied volatility is closely aligned with realized volatility. Overall, Intel’s options appear fairly priced to slightly reasonable rather than notably cheap or richly priced.

The Call/Put volume ratio is 1.48.

Large Trades

A $9.23 million net-credit combination was the day’s largest block, and it is best read as a short strangle rather than a synthetic structure because it involved selling both sides of the option chain: 1,400 Jan. 21, 2028 $140.00 puts and 1,400 Jan. 21, 2028 $140.00 calls. With INTC referenced at $101.35, the short call was out of the money while the short put was in the money, creating a premium-collection position centered on the $140.00 strike. The trade brought in a net credit of $9.23 million and suggests the trader was willing to take on substantial volatility and assignment risk, likely expressing a view that the long-dated pricing was rich or that the stock will ultimately migrate toward a more favorable level over time rather than make an extreme move beyond the risk tolerance embedded in the structure.

A $3.13 million net-credit three-leg cross-expiration combination was the second-largest trade, combining the sale of 1,500 Jun. 17, 2027 $110.00 calls, the sale of 1,500 Jun. 17, 2027 $90.00 puts, and the purchase of 2,000 Mar. 19, 2027 $82.50 puts. This is best characterized as a net-credit, risk-defined volatility and range-expression structure: the short $110.00 call and short $90.00 put form a short strangle around the current stock price, while the long $82.50 put adds downside hedging through an earlier expiration. With the $110.00 call and both puts out of the money versus the $101.35 reference price, the strategy appears designed to collect premium while maintaining some protection against a sharper selloff, indicating a moderately constructive-to-neutral stance rather than outright bullish aggression. Overall, the bulk-order flow leans bearish for INTC, as downside-oriented activity slightly outweighed bullish flow and the largest trades were dominated by premium-selling structures that cap upside and tolerate or hedge downside selectively, pointing to a market that appears cautious, volatility-aware, and not positioned for an immediate strong upside breakout.

Strategy Reference

For a low-assignment-probability short call, a seller could consider the $120 strike, which sits roughly 18.40% above spot; alternatively, an iron condor using the $90/$85 put spread and $110/$115 call spread would collect premium with defined risk while aligning with the observed cautious, range-bound order flow.