The week ahead

The Consumer Price Index arrives on Tuesday at 8:30 AM, with Real Earnings at the same minute, and the Producer Price Index follows on Friday at 8:30 AM. Wednesday is Veterans Day, a federal holiday: the Federal Reserve is closed and the stock exchanges are open. There is no Fed meeting this week; the next one runs 8 to 9 December. Weekly options expire on Friday and the November monthlies a week later, on 20 November. Nvidia is expected to report on 17 November, after the close, the week after this one.

Sources: BLS release schedule; Federal Reserve FOMC calendar and holiday schedule; U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data auction tables, which listed no auction dated 9 to 13 November; Nasdaq earnings calendar. All retrieved 7 November 2026. Weeklies expire each Friday, monthlies on the third Friday.

The view

Four names were in my notebook this week: Nvidia, Microsoft, Riot Platforms and IEF, the seven-to-ten-year Treasury fund.

Nvidia first. By my notes, on Thursday the December 18 80 puts and 120 puts both opened in size. OCC counted 160,964 and 113,200 contracts open in them on 6 November; my own reading had them near 14,000 and 17,000 before that (the author’s observation, not an OCC figure). Alongside them sat the November 20 200 calls, with 69,491 open on the same OCC reading. The deep puts read as one structure, a collar or a spread, not a bet on a crash. The stock closed Friday at 186.64, just under the keel at 187.01, its second close below it, and the crowd was heavy at 1.5 times its average. The swing and the season both sat more than 12% above that close, and the spring was compressed at 10.8. Earnings are expected on 17 November.

In Microsoft, by my notes, Thursday opened the December 18 580 calls and 650 calls together, a call spread shape. OCC showed 39,336 and 36,279 open on 6 November. The stock closed at 530.61, 15.5% above the keel, where it has closed for 71 sessions, and 20.6% above the year. The coil has been on for 8 sessions, and the crowd was ordinary at 1.1 times its average. Nothing is scheduled until January.

In Riot, a call ladder opened on Thursday, by my notes, for November 20 across the 17, 18, 21 and 23 strikes, which held 68,349, 98,226, 53,172 and 70,485 contracts on OCC’s 6 November reading. The stock closed at 16.71, 1.0% under the keel, on a crowd 1.8 times its average. The close sat 3.5% above the swing and 9.7% under the season, and the spring was stretched at 96.6. There are no earnings until March, so this is a bet on bitcoin’s range over two weeks, not on the company.

IEF’s November 18 92 puts went from a single open contract, by my notes, to 15,001 on OCC’s 6 November reading, with CPI on Tuesday morning. The fund closed at 91.86, 2.0% under both the keel and the year, on a thin crowd, 0.7 times its average. The swing at 90.93 and the season at 91.74 sat just under the close. To me that reads as the bond market paying for protection into the print.

The view: chips spent the end of the week under the keel, and the chain built both protection and upside into Nvidia earnings at the same time, which is what a market does when it has no opinion yet. Rates matter more than earnings this week. The 10-year Treasury par yield ended Friday at 4.86%, from 4.94% a week earlier. I think the market shrugs CPI unless it surprises.

Sources: OCC, series open interest, as of 6 November 2026, retrieved 7 November 2026; Nasdaq.com daily history to the 6 November 2026 close, retrieved 7 November 2026, with every line computed by SomerQuant; U.S. Treasury daily par yield curve, 30 October and 6 November 2026; Nasdaq earnings calendar. Starting figures marked as the author’s observation are his own reading and are not OCC data.

On the chain this week

No build on the list was confirmed between OCC readings this week. The 6 November readings above are the first saved on this site, and next week’s builds will be confirmed against them. Open interest says contracts were opened; it does not say by whom or why. The readings saved this week cover only the series named in my notebook, ten in all: three in Nvidia, two in Microsoft, four in Riot and one in IEF. A build will be printed here only when the next reading for the same series is up by at least a quarter and by at least 1,000 contracts.

Source: OCC, series open interest, as of 6 November 2026, retrieved 7 November 2026.

One thing worth knowing

Volume counts every contract that changed hands in a session. It cannot tell an opening trade from a closing one: a buyer closing an old short and a buyer opening a new long leave the same print. Open interest settles the question, but only after the clearing house has matched the session’s trades overnight, and it publishes the count as of the prior close. That is why no same-day open interest figure appears here, and why a build is called confirmed only when two of those next-morning readings agree. The IEF puts above are the example: the 15,001 is the count OCC published after Friday’s close, not anything seen while Friday traded, and whatever changed during Friday will only be visible in the next reading. The same rule is why the Thursday starting counts in my notebook are labelled as my own reading. The mechanics of how contracts are settled at expiry are in Academy lesson 2.7, Early Assignment, Pin Risk and Expiration Mechanics.

Source: OCC, series open interest, as of 6 November 2026.

For the record

Scored last week

Nothing was open from last week: this is the first Sunday Read. 0 aligned, 0 invalidated, 0 unresolved, 3 open since 8 November 2026. The full table is on The Receipts.

New this week

My notebook carried three lines for the record this week. Each is scored on a daily close, on The Receipts, after Friday’s session, whichever way it goes, and the misses stay up beside the hits.

First observation.

Base rate: 200 of 500 cases since 1 November 2024.

Base rate: 132 of 500 cases since 1 November 2024.

Sources: Nasdaq.com daily history to the 6 November 2026 close. A base rate counts every five-session window since 1 November 2024 in which the same name gained at least as much as the line needs (0.15% for IEF, 7.72% for Riot). Nvidia had not closed under the keel before Thursday in the history read here, so its line is a first observation.