Calls and Puts Verdict, October 19, 2026

Live chain grading at 10:00 AM ET. Read only research, no trades placed.

Today’s Trades

None cleared.

Gapped Past Entry

Broadcom (AVGO) $350 put, the premarket candidate. Friday close was $328.75 with a breakeven of $322.42, needing a 1.9 percent drop. Live price is $336.66, up 2.4 percent from Friday on the broad semis bounce. The stock moved the wrong way entirely. Dead for today.

Rejected, and why

No other screener name from this morning’s run cleared. All 11 tickers from the 8:30 scan (GOOGL, GOOG, QCOM calls, FSLR, NFLX, F, BAC, VRT, JPM, CVNA, MCD puts) carry an October 23 expiry, 7 DTE, which fails the 21 to 60 day gate outright before trend or liquidity is even checked.

Sector Options

A second pass starting from the morning’s sector call, graded on the same day round trip standard. All 5 sector calls (Tech/Semis, Discretionary, Small Caps bullish; Energy, Staples bearish) held directionally on the live tape, but neither side produced a trade.

Call side rejected: the sector ETFs themselves, XLK and SMH, are still below their own 50 day SMA despite leading today’s bounce. This is a counter trend rally inside a longer downtrend, not a resumed uptrend. Of the individual names (AMD, QCOM, GOOGL, NVDA), only AMD cleanly clears the 50 day test.

Put side rejected: Energy and Staples (XLE, XLP, XOM, CVX, KO) are all still well above their own 50 day despite today’s pullback. The bearish sector call is a one day wobble inside an uptrend, not a confirmed downtrend. Only MCD, an idiosyncratic single name unrelated to either sector thesis, clears on trend.

Contracts priced on the names that did clear trend (AMD $545C, GOOGL $345C, QCOM $175C, MCD $240P, all Nov 20 expiry) all failed on liquidity: spreads of 5 to 6 percent of mark, volume of 10 to 78 contracts against the 500 minimum, and AMD’s strike carrying zero open interest. MCD also carries an earnings print on 11/4, before the 11/20 expiry.

No sector options trade clears today.