Shares of Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) are sliding 4.1% to trade at $179.07 this morning, after the chipmaker's board opened an investigation surrounding CEO Jensen Huang’s ties to Alice Huang, whom U.S. officials suspect of passing information to Beijing through her AI-related company, Megaspeed.
The shares are trading at seven-month lows and on track for their seventh daily drop in nine sessions. NVDA is also back below the $180 and year-to-date breakeven level, with overhead pressure at the 20-day moving average.
Options traders have been more bearish than usual. At the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), NVDA's 10-day put/call volume ratio ranks in the 97th percentile of its annual range.
Options are looking affordable as well. This is per NVDA's Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 71%, which stands higher than just 18% of all other readings from the past year.
Nvidia stock has usually underperformed options traders' volatility expectations in the last 12 month, per its Schaeffer's Volatility Scorecard (SVS) of 1 out of 100. In simpler terms, this makes the stock an intriguing selling candidate.
