Mag 8 options: Nvidia leads the tape as Broadcom and Alphabet slide

Figures as of the opening session, Tuesday 13 October 2026. Prices and options volume move continuously; everything below is sourced and timestamped to today's session.

The Magnificent names did not move as a bloc this morning. Nvidia traded higher while Broadcom and Alphabet fell, and the options tape concentrated in a handful of tickers rather than spreading across the group — the kind of split session where an index print tells you almost nothing.

Mag 8 at the open

AMD traded around $594.24, inside a session range of $586.54 to $601.77, against a 52-week range of $188.22 to $658.52.

Where the options volume actually went

The contract tape was far more concentrated than the share tape. Nvidia alone traded roughly as many contracts as the next two names combined.

Two things stand out. Nvidia led the options tape on a day it rose, while the heaviest share-price damage in the group landed on Broadcom and Alphabet — neither of which appears near the top of the contract leaderboard. And Tesla sat second on contracts while moving only a fifth of a percent on the day, which is characteristic of that name: options activity there is frequently unrelated to the size of the underlying move.

The chip split

Monday's memory-chip selloff carried into Tuesday, but it did not hit the group evenly. The catalyst remains Chinese memory maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) announcing progress on a more efficient design, which pushed South Korea's KOSPI down more than 5% with Samsung and SK Hynix each off roughly 8%. In US memory names, Seagate and Western Digital fell about 6–7%, Micron more than 5% and Sandisk more than 4%.

Within Mag 8 the read-through was selective: Broadcom took the worst of it at −2.15%, while Nvidia traded higher. Broadcom chief executive Hock Tan separately likened some flows into the broader AI sector to “casino gambling,” which did not help sentiment in the complex.

What the options were pricing

For a sense of what the near expiry was carrying into Wednesday, AMD's 14 October contracts implied an expected move of roughly ±$36.88, or about ±5.82%, at an implied volatility near 41%. Its 30-day measure sat considerably higher, in the high 50s, with implied volatility rank around 20 — elevated in absolute terms but not unusual relative to its own history.

The backdrop: banks opened earnings season

Four major banks reported before the bell, which is what kept the Dow green while the Nasdaq struggled.

JPMorgan Chase posted profit up 6% to $15.3 billion, or $5.57 per share, against the $5.90 expected, on net revenue up 8% to $50.2 billion; it raised 2026 net interest income guidance and the shares still gained around 1.3%. Goldman Sachs was the cleanest beat, profit up 29% on steady dealmaking and stronger equities revenue, up more than 4% pre-market. Wells Fargo beat with improved credit metrics. Citigroup also reported.

Index level, the Dow opened at 51,983.94 (+0.26%), the S&P 500 at 7,811.70 (+0.06%) and the Nasdaq Composite at 27,258.89 (+0.05%). The 10-year Treasury yield sat at 5.20%, gold at $4,205.10 and November crude at $93.00. The US government shutdown continues to delay official economic data, which is part of why this earnings season is being read more closely than usual.

Reading a split session from the execution side

Three observations, none of them a recommendation.

A flat index is not a quiet market. The S&P opened within a rounding error of unchanged while constituents inside it moved between −2% and +1%, and names outside the group moved far more. For anyone working single-name contracts, the index print was the least informative number on the screen.

Contract volume and price movement are different signals. Tesla was second on the options tape while barely moving; Broadcom took the biggest hit in the group without leading it. Heavy contract volume tells you where attention is, not which way it resolved.

Earnings mornings change the book, not just the price. Names reporting before the bell routinely quote wider in the first minutes and tighten as volume arrives. On a short-dated contract that opening spread is a real cost, and whether a strike is genuinely trading — rather than merely listed — matters more on a morning like this than on a quiet one.

Sources
Yahoo Finance — Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq trade mixed as earnings season kicks off
Yahoo Finance — Mag 8 quotes and session volume
TheStreet — Stock Market Today (Oct. 13, 2026)
BNN Bloomberg — Wall Street mixed as big U.S. banks report earnings, chip stocks fall again
Bloomberg — S&P 500 Futures Little Changed as Banks Report, Chipmakers Fall
OptionCharts — AMD expected move and implied volatility
StockAnalysis — AMD price and range

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