{"id":780266,"date":"2026-05-07T19:07:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/780266\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T19:07:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:07:20","slug":"options-traders-love-this-under-the-radar-ai-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/780266\/","title":{"rendered":"Options traders love this under-the-radar AI play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on May 7, 2026. <\/p>\n

NYSE <\/p>\n

For an $18 billion market-cap company, data-center owner Iren<\/a> trades like one of the AI giants.<\/p>\n

The company had two of the top 20 biggest options trades in the market on Thursday and a total $173 million of premium traded hands, with 73% of that in calls.<\/p>\n

By comparison, less than a million dollars of options traded in total between data-center real-estate stocks Equinix<\/a> and Digital Realty Trust<\/a>, whose combined market cap is almost ten times Iren’s. As of noon Chicago time, the trading in Iren also surpassed the dollar amount traded in VanEck Semiconductor ETF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The two biggest trades of the day were part of a $36 million long strangle trade that bets on a big move in either direction. The trader bought 12,500 65-strike calls and an equal amount of 60-strike puts both expiring Sept. 18 of this year, a trade that only pays off if the stock crashes below $45 or rallies above $79, which would be an all-time high.<\/p>\n

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon\"hide<\/p>\n

IREN, 1 year<\/p>\n

The stock’s been a retail trading favorite the past year, adding 770% as the company squared its focus onto AI customers from crypto and bitcoin mining.<\/p>\n

Implied volatility going into earnings tonight points to a 14% swing, but traders do have a habit of overpaying for options around earnings. The average implied earnings move was 12% the past year, but the median actual move was 6%, according to data compiled by Cboe.<\/p>\n

Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on May 7, 2026. NYSE For an $18 billion market-cap…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":780267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,133,81,960,131466,35072,152040,135,158,67,132,68,146],"class_list":{"0":"post-780266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-breaking-news-markets","11":"tag-business-news","12":"tag-chicago","13":"tag-digital-realty-trust-inc","14":"tag-equinix-inc","15":"tag-iren-ltd","16":"tag-markets","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-vaneck-semiconductor-etf"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116534867660613442","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}