Trade Alert: AI And The Moon
Bullish options bets on both.
Anthropic, The Stack, And Why It Matters
If you’ve been following AI even casually, you’ve probably seen the name Anthropic popping up more and more. It’s one of the leading “frontier” labs building large language models, and it has attracted heavy backing from a few of the biggest players in tech — including a $4B commitment from a major cloud provider that wants Anthropic’s models as a core part of its AI stack. (Silicon Republic)
One way to think about Anthropic’s position is in terms of leverage: insiders have floated numbers around a ~$100M annualized revenue run-rate at one point, with private-market valuations in the tens of billions — implying eye-watering revenue multiples compared to more mature peers. (Maginative) That doesn’t tell you what the right valuation is, but it does tell you how much the market cares about whoever ends up owning slices of this thing.
If you haven’t read it yet, Steve Yegge’s “Anthropic hive mind” essay is a good, long-form look at what makes this lab interesting — culturally and technically — compared to the rest of the field. (LLM Explorer) It’s not a stock pitch, but it’s useful context for understanding why investors are willing to pay up for exposure here.
Getting Pre-IPO Exposure (Without Buying The Lab)
Most of us can’t write a multibillion-dollar check into a private AI lab. The practical way in is via public companies that own meaningful stakes or are tightly partnered with those labs.
That’s the angle I’m taking in today’s trade: one of the few profitable, cash-rich software names that:
Screens well on both fundamentals (strong balance sheet, real earnings) and
Technicals (healthy overall technical rating and setup score in my preferred range), and
Also happens to be one of the cleanest ways to get pre-IPO exposure to Anthropic through the public marke
In the paid section, I’ll walk through a hybrid options structure on that name designed to:
Keep the max loss tightly defined,
Use near-term options to harvest some of today’s elevated vol, and
Preserve uncapped upside if the market starts to re-rate Anthropic-adjacent plays.
A Small-Cap Space Name On My Radar
The second trade idea today comes from a completely different corner of the market: space and lunar infrastructure.
One small-cap there just did something I pay close attention to:
It climbed into Portfolio Armor’s Top Names on Friday, and
Simultaneously tripped my RSI + setup range alerts — the combination I like to see before putting fresh capital to work.
On top of that, it’s getting a bid today after Elon Musk’s announcement over the weekend, that he’s pivoting from Mars to the moon.
It’s a volatile name, so in the paid section I’ll be using another four-leg hybrid structure to:
Finance a longer-dated upside call with near-term options around the upcoming earnings date, and
Build in a defined “floor” in case the next downdraft in momentum stocks hits the space names again.
If this kind of structured way of getting exposure to AI and space themes interests you, the paid section has the exact strikes, expirations, max gain/loss, and preset exit plans for both trades.
Today’s Anthropic Exposure Trade
AI collaboration / pre-IPO Anthropic exposure theme
The stock is Zoom Video Communications (ZM 0.00%↑), and our trade is a hybrid combo consisting of these four legs:
Buying the August 21st, 2026 $105 call,
Selling the June 18th, 2026 $110 call,
Selling the June 18th, 2026 $80 put, and
Buying the June 18th, 2026 $75 put,
For a max net debit of $1.60. The max gain on 1 contract is $870 (and the upside will be uncapped if the short June $110 call expires out of the money), and the max loss is $660. This trade hasn’t filled yet. I’ll keep this order open until Friday’s close if it doesn’t fill today. This trade filled at $1.60 later on 2/9/2026.
Here, the logic is:
Use a longer-dated call to capture upside if the market starts to re-rate Anthropic-adjacent software names over the next year,
Finance some of that call by selling a nearer-dated out-of-the-money call, and
Define the downside with a put spread under the recent range.
Today’s Top Names Trade
Lunar infrastructure / space services theme
The stock is Intuitive Machines (LUNR 0.00%↑), and our trade is a hybrid combo consisting of these four legs:
Buying the September 18th, 2026 $26 call,
Selling the March 27th, 2026 $26 call,
Selling the March 27th, 2026 $18 put, and
Buying the March 27th, 2026 $13 put,
For a max net debit of $1.75. The max gain on 1 contract is $606 (and the upside will be uncapped if the short March $26 call expires out of the money), and the max loss is $675. This trade filled at $1.75.
This structure gives us:
A longer-dated upside call to benefit if LUNR catches another speculative leg higher into or after the next few quarters,
A short near-term call around the upcoming earnings date to harvest some of that volatility, and
A defined put spread “floor” to limit damage if the next momentum washout hits the space names again.
If we get another risk-off squall in speculative names like we did last week, we may be able to buy-to-close the short call here cheaply, locking in a partial profit while eliminating our upside cap.
Exiting These Trades
My plan:
ZM
Calls/Calendar (legs 1 & 2): Open a GTC limit order to buy-to-close the short June $110 call at $0.20, and raise that price if necessary as we approach expiration. If the short call expires in the money, I’ll sell the long August $105 call and use part of the proceeds to buy-to-close the short call. If the short call expires out of the money, I’ll share a limit sell price for the longer-dated calls in the comments here and via chat/email.
Put spread (legs 3 & 4): Open a GTC limit order to exit the June $80–$75 put spread at a net debit of $0.20, and raise that price if necessary as we approach expiration.
LUNR
Calls/Calendar (legs 1 & 2): Open a GTC limit order to buy-to-close the short March $26 call at $0.20, and raise that price if necessary as we approach expiration. If the short call expires in the money, I’ll sell the long September $26 call and use part of the proceeds to buy-to-close the short call. If the short call expires out of the money, I’ll share a limit sell price for the longer-dated calls in the comments here and via chat/email.
Put spread (legs 3 & 4): Open a GTC limit order to exit at a net debit of $0.20, and raise that price if necessary as we approach expiration.
Out of the ZM put spread today at $0.20.
Bought-to-close the short LUNR call at $0.20 today.