Nvidia Earnings Are Out--How Options Traders Are Reacting

Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) earnings have come and gone, and Wall Street is still standing. The tech and semiconductor sector might be a little wobbly though. NVDA is down 0.8% to trade at $221.69, heading for a fourth-straight loss as the overall stellar report wasn't enough for investors. How are options traders reacting?

For starters, the world's most valuable company has appeared -- for over two years straight -- on Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White's list of names on the S&P 500 Index (SPX)  that have attracted the most options volume in the last two weeks. During this most recent timeframe, over 32 million calls and roughly 13 million puts were exchanged. The July 220 call was the top trade, while new positions were being bought to open at the weekly 5/22 255-strike call yesterday leading up to earnings.

Today is more of the same. At last look, the weekly 5/22 230-strike call is the most popular contract changing hands today. Overall though, options volume is subdued, running at only 1.3 times the average intraday amount. 

On the charts, NVDA is forming what looks like could be a bullish flag pattern with its recent sideways trading. Year-to-date, the shares are up 18.6% and are still not far off their May 14 all-time high of $236.54.