Options Scorecard: A Reddit Put and a Nutanix Pass, Both Right at Expiry

TL;DR

• Two calls reached their expiry this week and both were right. The Reddit put logged against the S&P 500 inclusion spike settled in the money. The Nutanix straddle pass avoided a losing trade. 2 of 2, 100%, which is too small a sample to mean much.
• No losses to report this week.
• The two results point opposite ways on implied volatility. Reddit moved more than its 14.4% implied move, so buying the put paid. Nutanix moved far less than its 14.9%, so passing on the straddle paid. Neither result sets a rule for next week.
• A five-week-old ledger error is fixed. Applied Materials' post-earnings long was graded a loss in the September 11 scorecard, but its ledger row was left marked open. The row now matches the published grade. The grade itself does not change.
• Twenty-five other positions stay open, most without a dated checkpoint this week. The full ledger carries them all.

The Board

Two calls graded this week, both right.

Both calls had a Cboe-listed September 18, 2026 expiry. They were logged five weeks apart and settled on the same Friday. That is why this edition grades two rows instead of a backlog.

The Reddit Put

Reddit's S&P 500 inclusion spiked the stock to $179.09 on August 14. The logged play bet against that holding: a $160 put, September 18 expiry, bought for $4.55. Breakeven was $155.45. The thesis: index-fund buying is price-insensitive and temporary. Once the rebalance trade finishes, the stock gives the pop back.

RDDT closed September 18 at $150.84 per Yahoo Finance and $150.92 per MarketBeat, close enough to treat as $150.88. StockAnalysis.com read $152.25 for the same session and did not reconcile with either one, so the two agreeing sources carried the grade. Either way, the close sat well below the $155.45 breakeven. The $160 put carried $9.12 of intrinsic value against the $4.55 paid for it. That is a 100.4% return on the premium risked. The stock fell 15.75% from entry to expiry, more than the 14.4% implied move logged the day the position was taken. The put made money because the stock moved further than the options market had priced.

The Nutanix Pass

Nutanix's fiscal Q4 preview logged a pass on a $67.50 straddle expiring the same September 18. It was priced at roughly 14.9% of the $66.61 entry spot, with a $56.69-$76.53 breakeven band. The reasoning at the time: that expiry was 23 days after the August 26 earnings date. So the straddle price covered three weeks of market-wide risk as well as Nutanix's own results. Nvidia's earnings, Jackson Hole and PCE all fell inside that window.

NTNX closed September 18 at $69.80 per Yahoo Finance and $69.83 per MarketBeat, averaged here to $69.81. StockAnalysis.com's $70.08 read did not match either one and was set aside. That close sits comfortably inside the breakeven band, up 4.80% from entry against the 14.9% priced in. A trader who bought that straddle for roughly $9.92 would have settled it for $2.31 of intrinsic value. That is a loss of about 76.7% of the premium. Passing was the right call. Three-quarters of the premium would have been lost, because the stock moved far less over those three weeks than the options market priced.

What the Two Results Say About Implied Volatility

The two results point opposite ways. Buying options paid on Reddit, because the stock moved more than the options market priced. Passing on options paid on Nutanix, because the stock moved less. Neither "buy puts into spikes" nor "pass on every earnings straddle" would have got both right. The rule that has held since mid-August still applies: compare the stock's recent actual moves with what the options market is pricing. Let that decide. A general view that options are expensive or cheap is not enough on its own.

Both calls also beat the index over their holding period. SPY fell 1.97% from the RDDT entry session to expiry and 1.89% from the NTNX entry session to expiry.

The AMAT Correction

The September 11 scorecard graded Applied Materials' post-print long a loss in its published prose: down 8.56%, from the $499.40 trigger-day open to the September 11 close of $456.68. But the row's status in the ledger file was never changed from open to scored. The published grade was correct; the ledger row had not been updated to match. That row now reads scored, loss, -8.56%, crediting this scorecard's slug. The number does not change. The correction is recorded here so it stays visible.

Not Yet Due

Twenty-five positions carry into the next cycle. Most have no dated checkpoint landing before next Friday. One is worth watching: Analog Devices' conditional long, triggered off the August 19 open, was framed against a one-to-two-month re-rating window that opens this weekend. The full ledger carries every open row with CSV and JSON downloads. It is linked from the current week-ahead hub.

The One-Line Read

Two calls expired this week and both were right. One won by buying options and one by passing on them, so two results are not enough to set a rule.