Today's Options Market Update

U.S. equities are rising in midday trading. The S&P 500 is looking to snap a seven-week losing streak after flirting with bear market territory on Friday and briefly dropping below that level intra-day. Inflation and the ensuing hawkish monetary policy continue to be headwinds along with fears of slowing economic growth and the ongoing war in Ukraine. In M&A news, cloud computing company VMWare is reportedly in advanced talks to be acquired by chipmaker Broadcom. Meanwhile, Pfizer is rising after reporting results from its COVID vaccine trial on children under the age of 5. The economic calendar is dormant today but is set to heat up later this week with Fed meeting minutes, initial jobless claims, and consumer sentiment headlining the week. Treasuries are dipping as yields are ticking higher. The U.S. dollar is dropping, while crude oil is losing ground, and gold is rising. Europe is mixed following comments from European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde who indicated that negative rates are likely to be over by the end of Q3. Asia finished mixed, although President Biden said he is considering lifting some Chinese tariffs to help combat inflation.

As of 10:55 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 1.6%, the S&P 500 is rising 1.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite is increasing 0.4%. WTI crude oil is falling $0.67 at $109.61 per barrel, and Brent crude oil is decreasing $0.37 at $112.18 per barrel. The gold spot price is trading $10.60 higher to $1,852.70 per ounce, and the Dollar Index is falling 1.0% at 102.19. Natural Gas prices have traded in a range of $7.851-8.282 and were last seen trading higher by $0.182 (or +2.25%) to $8.265/MMBtu.

Source: Schwab Center for Financial Research

Today’s Bullish Activity

Shares of JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM + $3.91 to $121.25) are moving higher this morning after the banking giant lifted its forecast for net interest income (NII) and affirmed its profitability target at the company’s investor conference earlier this morning. The company said that it now expects 2022 NII, excluding market business, to reach $56.0B, versus a prior expectation for NII to be a “couple billion” more than $53.0B. Shares of JPM hit a six-month low of $115.02 during Friday’s trading session. Calls are outnumbering puts ~5:2 with the May 27th 122.00 call leading the Top Volume list (volume is 3,719).