With the annual expiration approaching, over half of all options will expire this Friday, the DEC 26th. Rollover trades are now the dominant force in trading volume. This creates significant signal noise, making options data unreliable as a trading signal in recent days. For instance, puts accounted for 30% of today's block trades, yet this isn't a bearish signal. Many deeply out-of-the-money and in-the-money put options traded, and this shouldn't be interpreted as institutional positioning either. When a large volume of options expires, many institutions roll over positions early to mitigate pin-prick risk. At this point, picking up the leftover positions discarded by institutions offers exceptional value—prices are extremely favorable. With significant negative slippage observed these past two days, utilizing smart trading can secure better quotes. This is hard-earned experience bought with real money 😁(Greeks.live)