Traders sold $52 million of S&P put hedges right before the post-election rally

At 3:02 PM ET on Nov 2, the day before the midterms, about 55,300 S&P proxy puts at the $750 strike expiring Nov 20 changed hands for about $52.2M, nearly all of it on the bid. Open interest at that strike fell by about 48,900 contracts the next morning, which points to holders selling protection they already owned rather than anyone opening a new bet. At about $9.43 a contract, those puts only pay at expiry if the S&P proxy falls below about $741. After Democrats were projected to sweep Congress, it trades near $767, up about 1.6% Wednesday.

The biggest bets

The largest single-stock print came Wednesday. At 11:09 AM ET, 1,913 Micron January 2027 $850 puts traded for about $21.1M at the bid, with the stock near $798 and memory names down hard on the day. Selling puts at that size usually means collecting premium in exchange for owning the stock lower, here about $740 after the roughly $110 premium, though it can also be an owner cashing out. Tomorrow's open interest will tell which. Micron is down about 5.9% at 11:42 AM ET and Sandisk about 8.5%.

Lumentum is the week's lesson. On Oct 29, a day after a report that Marvell was in advanced talks to buy it, about $43.4M traded in Lumentum's January 2027 $1,050 puts in four prints between 9:40 and 9:43 AM ET, the largest about $19.6M, with the stock near $932. Most of it traded at the ask, and posts called it downside protection. But open interest at that strike fell from about 2,280 to 1,040 contracts overnight, so much of the volume closed old positions instead of opening new ones. Lumentum then fell about 8.6% on Oct 30 and about 18.6% on Nov 2, when Marvell announced an all-stock deal, and it trades near $608 now, about 34% below its Oct 29 close.

In Apple, about $10.1M of January 2028 $310 calls traded at 11:01 AM ET on Nov 2, almost all on the bid, and open interest fell by about 1,475 contracts. That is the same strike that drew about $30.8M last week, and this looks like part of it being cashed out. Apple is up about 6.3% Wednesday. On the other side of the election, a buyer swept about $21.0M of Nasdaq proxy March 2027 $720 calls at the ask at 9:52 AM ET Wednesday, which need the Nasdaq proxy above about $752 at expiry, about 8.4% above its 11:42 AM ET price.

Insiders and funds

The week's biggest purchase was at Rollins, where a family voting trust and LOR Inc, both 10% owners reporting the same shares, bought about 1.44 million shares on Oct 29 at $34.59, roughly $50.0M, per a filing dated Nov 2. Nippon Life kept adding to Corebridge Financial, buying about $25.3M of stock across Oct 28 to 30 on top of last week's purchase. On the sell side, Amphenol CEO Adam Norwitt sold about 800,000 shares on Nov 2 at $82.48, roughly $66.0M, and Arista co-founder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold about $45.9M on Oct 30 under a preset trading plan. Amphenol is down about 6.9% Wednesday.

Reading the flow

The week's flow fits a market that was hedged into the vote. Across all listed options, puts traded at 0.88 for every call on Nov 2 and 0.83 on Election Day, then fell to about 0.74 by late Wednesday morning as fear came out of the tape. Flow is a clue, not a signal. The Lumentum puts were the loudest trade of the week, yet open interest says many of them were closing, and the Micron and Apple prints were sales, not bets. A bid-side print can be a hedge coming off or a new short, and the next day's open interest is the cleanest tell. What would contradict the relief read is the vol proxy, down about 7.6% Wednesday, turning back up while put volume climbs.

What X is saying

Flow accounts called the Lumentum puts downside protection into the deal headline within minutes of the prints. Before the vote, one market account noted traders were not racing toward put hedges the way they usually do on a midterm election day. On Wednesday, posts describe memory names as getting liquidated even as the index rallies, and flow accounts flagged the March Nasdaq calls as they hit the tape.