This is one fingerprint you don’t want to miss

BY ANDREW GIOVINAZZI

February 18, 2025

Yo Pit Crazies,

Welcome back after a 3 day weekend. I would report on action this weekend but most of it is the same as last Friday. Market conditions if anything are very positive after the White House announced the latest tariff idea. Nvidia Inc (Ticker: NVDA) is back above $140 so all is right with the world.

Hans goes live with some Special Situation names that are coming back. It is a technique I use in my Option Fingerprint classes.

This last year I introduced Option Fingerprints for long term options as a way to ferret out institutional interest. I keep a list of stocks on my Year Low’s list and every now and then they start to pick up more volume. Below is a Fingerprint of some healthy open interest back in September. The stock was in the mid-$3 range and had been there for some time.

Sep03 Option Fingerprint

It is not there anymore, it is closer to $5.00.

Let’s see what the Option Fingerprints tell us now.

Grab Holdings Limited (Ticker: GRAB) is crazy

Here is a full screenshot of GRAB. The call open interest is pretty solid out of the money. Notice the implied volatilities IVs in Sep were in the 30s. Mostly GRAB was going nowhere fast.

Note below that GRAB had a couple of improved earnings cycles but the company is still not consistently profitable. The Door Dash of Singapore is still looking for steady profitability but that is not stopping traders. I like to see more consistent profits before diving in, but companies can surprise good and bad.

What did catch my eye here is the 10 fold increase in upside option buying nearly doubling the Option Fingerprint From what I can tell this has been more scattered retail buying but it sure is adding up and increasing the OI. IV is exploding into the next earnings cycle where traders expect GRAB to earn a profit and move on to become a real company.

Earnings should be any day now.

To Your Trading Success,