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Alphabet Sees Sell-Off in $160 Call Options Amid Reports DOJ May Seek Google Breakup

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Luzi Ann Santos wrote a column · Aug 15 01:48
$Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ is seeing the heaviest volume in call options that give the holders the right to buy the stock at $160 after the share price fell below that strike price amid reports that the Department of Justice is considering seeking Google's breakup.  
The DOJ may seek to break up Google after a court found that the company monopolized the online search market, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the deliberations. A less severe option could be to force the company to share more data with competitors and undertake measures to prevent the tech behemoth from gaining unfair advantage over its competitors in products powered by artificial intelligence (AI), according to the report.
Shares of Alphabet fell 3% to $159.20 at 1:10 p.m. in New York, rendering the $160 call options out of the money.  More than 52,000 $160 call options changed hands so far, making them most active among contracts in 20 expiration dates stretching through Dec. 18, 2026.  
Source: moomoo mobile app
Source: moomoo mobile app
(To see Alphabet's options chain, click here. For the options market page, click here.)
Over half of that total volume in Alphabet options were in contracts expiring in two days. The price of those $160 calls expiring Friday slumped 78% to $1.12.
Even before the news report about the DOJ potentially seeking Google's breakup, Bloomberg Intelligence noted that the company's search revenue, which reached more than $146 billion in 2021, "is vulnerable."
Google Search is part of the Google Services revenue reported by Alphabet in its quarterly earnings.
Source: moomoo mobile app
Source: moomoo mobile app
"Behavioral changes could result in the loss of the default position and market share," Jennifer Rie, a senior litigation analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence said in a note dated Aug. 8. "The ultimate impact would depend on the injunction's breadth and subsequent user behavior."

Still, she said the company will likely appeal the court decision and seek a stay on any remedy proceedings pending its appeal. "The appeal could take more than a year, longer if a Supreme Court review is sought," Rie said.
In total, more than 341,330 Alphabet options were traded so far, including put options across all the expiration dates. That makes Alphabet the fourth most active stock options, behind $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$, $Tesla (TSLA.US)$  and $Apple (AAPL.US)$. (To see the options ranking, click here.)
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