RCooper-

Just getting caught up on AFB after working too much and at the same time trying to trade to protect my portfolio at the same time - not very successfully BTW

If you read my current post in the options thread you’ll see that I’m no fan of conspiracy and manipulation theories when it comes to AAPL following the broad market down.

My view is that large numbers of calls being traded can be either bullish or bearish - for lots of reasons - calls can be bought or sold to establish both bullish and bearish positions.

Were it does come in to play is when there is a large open interest of calls above the market price. This becomes a hurldle to get over as expiry approaches because market makers need to hedge the closing of those positions by selling stock so they can stay neutral and not be subject to big losses if the price moves up or down unexpectadly.

The closer to expiry you get - the closer 1 call gets to equalling 100 shares of AAPL ( you need a undertanding of option Greeks for me to explain this better - but take my word for it)

So if I’m an option market maker and am forced to buy a bunch of calls the day before expiry (due to selling by owners of those calls who want to book profits and minimize their risk) then I can only stay neutral by selling an equivalent amount of stock- thus putting downward pressure on the stock.

Variations of this fundamental option dynamic - that occurs for both calls and puts - is responsible for stocks tendency to get pinned to high open interest strike prices and for those strikes to act as a barrier to be overcome - to rise past for a high call open interest strike or fall below for a high put open interest strike.

IMO the only conclusion you can make about a high number of calls being traded 2 weeks before expiry is that the underlying stock is very actively traded - with a very active options market and a lot of volatilty - a description that fits AAPL perfectly.

One point to add - I’m fairly certain that most option open interest is held by big funds and not by retail traders - that might help clarify things.

mtdoc ,  Thanks for the explanation . Even though I am 55 years old there is a lot of investment areas that I know very little about so your comments are always welcome .