Apple Stock at a Crossroads: How Are Options Traders Reacting?

Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock is down 0.9% to trade at $246.53 at last check, as the Magnificent Seven tech titan wrangles with a 9.3% year-to-date deficit. Despite the struggles, options traders are firmly entrenched in the bullish camp, while a key trendline could determine AAPL's fate.

For over a year now, AAPL has consistently landed on Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White's list of stocks seeing the most options volume in the past 10 days. Over this two-week timeframe, the equity has seen roughly 4.1 million calls and 3 million puts traded, with the weekly 3/27 255-strike call seeing the most activity.

Apple stock is in danger of breaching its 320-day moving average on a closing basis for the first time since October. Only four weekly wins since December -- right around a Dec. 3 all-time high of $288.62 -- will do that to an equity. The round $250 level sitting above could also be a pivot point going forward.

Despite the call bias on an absolute basis, the rate of put buying has picked up. AAPL's 10-day put/call volume ratio of 0.71 at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) ranks higher than 89% of readings from the past year. 

Regardless of direction, options are affordably priced, per the security's Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 30% that stands in the 20th percentile of annual readings.