Tesla Inc. closed at USD 363.56, down 1.16%.

The session featured a standout USD 46.98 million deep in-the-money long put combination, while a separate synthetic call worth USD 646,200.00 offered a smaller bullish offset. Overall institutional-sized flow leaned clearly bearish, with large traders paying substantial premium for downside exposure or urgent protection, even as low IV percentile suggested relatively cheap option premiums across the rest of the board.

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Options Indicators

TSLA’s implied volatility is 44.75%, while its IV percentile is just 8.76%, which indicates that current volatility sits on the low end of its own historical range and options are cheaply priced rather than expensive. With the IV/HV ratio at 0.87, implied volatility is also running below realized volatility, reinforcing the view that current option premiums are relatively modest.

The Call/Put volume ratio is 1.20.

Large Trades

A directional put-buy combination worth USD 46.98 million was the standout large trade of the day, built through two long put legs: a buy of the September 18, 2026 $450.00 put and a buy of the September 11, 2026 $400.00 put. Because this structure contains both a Buy Put and another Buy Put, it is best identified as a same-direction long put combination rather than a spread, with the preprocessed size shown as a net debit of USD 46.98 million. With TSLA referenced at $363.56, both strikes were in the money at execution, which makes this a very aggressive downside expression using already-intrinsic puts. Strategically, this points to a trader paying a substantial premium for bearish exposure and/or sharp downside volatility, suggesting conviction that TSLA could experience a significant drop or that downside protection was urgently needed over the stated expirations.

A synthetic call option worth USD 646,200.00 was also displayed, created by pairing a buy of the September 11, 2026 $380.00 call with a sale of the September 11, 2026 $360.00 put. Under the classification rule, a Buy Call plus a Sell Put is a synthetic call, and its size is measured as the sum of the two leg amounts. Both options were out of the money versus the $363.56 reference price, so this was a relatively low-premium way to express upside participation while taking on put-side assignment risk below $360.00. The structure reflects a moderately bullish stance, as the trader positioned for TSLA to move higher while partially financing the call through short put premium.

Overall, the large-trade picture leans clearly bearish. The dominant feature was the enormous in-the-money long put combination, and even though the tape also included a bullish synthetic long and several smaller bullish call-focused trades elsewhere in the bulk orders, those were not large enough to offset the strong downside message from the biggest money flow. In short, institutional-sized activity suggests caution to negative expectations for TSLA, with the market’s larger players appearing more focused on downside protection or a meaningful bearish directional bet than on sustained upside chasing.

Strategy Reference

For a low assignment probability under the current low-IV regime, a seller could consider the September 2026 $300.00 put as a far out-of-the-money strike, while a defined-risk bearish spread such as buying the $450.00 put and selling the $400.00 put may reduce upfront premium for traders who prefer not to post excessive margin on outright in-the-money longs.