Tesla closed at $375.00, reflecting a 0.74% decline. Large options flow leaned decisively bearish, with a $1.90 million in-the-money put purchase dominating the tape. A much smaller out-of-the-money put sale attempted a bullish offset but was too small to shift the defensive tone. The biggest order signals institutional hedging or direct downside positioning, leaving the overall large-trade picture skewed toward caution and weakness rather than upside participation.
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Options Indicators
Tesla’s implied volatility is 44.98%, and with an IV percentile of 11.95%, current option pricing sits in the low end of its historical range, indicating volatility is relatively subdued and options are cheaply priced rather than expensive. At the same time, the IV/HV ratio of 1.52 shows implied volatility is still running above historical realized volatility, suggesting the market is assigning a moderate premium to forward uncertainty even though absolute pricing remains on the cheaper side versus its own past levels.
The Call/Put volume ratio is 1.31.
Large Trades
A PUT buy worth $1.90 million was the standout large trade, with 1,002 contracts of the 390.0 put expiring on 2026-10-09 purchased while Tesla was referenced at $375.0. Because the strike sat above the stock price, this was an in-the-money put purchase, making it a clear bearish position with meaningful downside sensitivity. Strategically, this kind of trade typically reflects either a direct downside bet or protective hedging against a pullback over the coming year, and its size made it the dominant expression in the displayed block flow.
A smaller but still notable bullish trade was an out-of-the-money put sale worth $115,900, involving 3,864 contracts of the 360.0 put expiring on 2026-10-09. With the strike below the $375.0 reference price, the seller was effectively expressing willingness to own shares at a lower level while collecting premium, which is generally a moderately bullish or at least downside-tolerant stance. Even so, the scale of this premium-selling trade was far smaller than the large in-the-money put purchase, so it did little to offset the stronger defensive or bearish message coming from the biggest order.
Overall, the large-trade picture leans clearly bearish. The flow was dominated by downside-oriented put buying, and while there was some bullish premium-selling activity and smaller call buying elsewhere in the broader tape, those trades were not large enough to challenge the overwhelmingly defensive tone set by the biggest orders. The market sentiment implied by these bulk trades is that institutional positioning appears more concerned with downside risk than upside participation, leaving Tesla’s large-order flow skewed toward caution and weakness.
Strategy Reference
Given the subdued IV percentile, a put credit spread may offer a defined-risk way to collect premium without the unlimited risk of a naked put sale; for example, selling the 360.0 put while buying a lower strike such as the 320.0 put on the same 2026-10-09 expiration can limit margin and cap losses if Tesla breaks decisively lower.
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