Meta shares surge 12% as options traders bet on Muse AI assistant

, , , , ,

Options traders piled into Meta Platforms contracts at levels rarely seen outside earnings week, betting the launch of its Muse AI assistant marks the stock’s next leg higher. The surge in bullish positioning coincided with a 12% one-day jump in shares and a broader rally that has lifted Meta to within striking distance of its all-time high.

  • Meta options volume hit about 4.5 times the 30-day average on Monday, per Cboe LiveVol and SpotGamma data.
  • Roughly $3.9 billion in total options premium changed hands, with more than twice as many calls likely bought as puts.
  • Meta’s Muse AI assistant logged 730,000 downloads in its first five days after launching September 8, according to Sensor Tower data.
  • $3.9B total options premium traded in Meta contracts Monday
  • 4.5x Monday’s options volume versus the 30-day average
  • 12% single-day jump in Meta shares Monday
  • 730,000 Muse app downloads in its first five days

Meta shares jumped 12% on Monday, pushing the stock within 7% of the all-time high it set in August 2025, according to reporting by CNBC. The move extends a 21% rally that began after the company unveiled details of Muse, its personal AI assistant, and disclosed plans for Petal, a new subsea cable designed to carry data across the Atlantic.

Call Buying Outpaces Puts by More Than 2-to-1

Options desks treated Monday’s session like a catalyst event. Total premium traded reached about $3.9 billion, roughly 4.5 times Meta’s 30-day average volume.

Cboe LiveVol and SpotGamma data show calls were bought over puts by more than a 2-to-1 margin, and seven of the ten largest trades of the day were bullish or neutral. The most active contracts were zero-day-to-expiry options with strikes between 720 and 745, all of which finished in the money as the stock ran higher.

Trading also concentrated further out on the calendar, with heavy volume in the 775 and 800 strikes expiring in mid-October. SpotGamma estimates more than $1 billion of call premium came from buyers opening new bullish positions, while over $850 million was tied to selling, a pattern the firm reads as a bullish tilt cushioned by upside hedging.

Muse Downloads Hit 730,000 in First Five Days

Muse launched September 8 and has already climbed the app store charts, drawing 730,000 downloads in roughly five days, according to Sensor Tower data cited by CNBC. Brent Kochuba, founder of SpotGamma, pointed to that early traction as the driver behind the options activity.

The inflows in options are huge. It seems like AI hype around their Muse.

Brent Kochuba, founder, SpotGamma

Not every large position on Monday was a straightforward bullish bet. The session’s biggest dollar trade was a net short of roughly $20 million built through a handful of spread trades.

Petal Cable Adds a Second Growth Story to Meta’s Rally

Meta’s 21% rally since the Muse rollout was reinforced by the company’s announcement of Petal, a planned subsea cable to move data across the Atlantic. The infrastructure plan gives investors a second, less consumer-facing reason to stay bullish alongside the AI assistant launch.

The centerpiece of that skeptical positioning was a one-by-two 710/765-strike call spread expiring October 16, structured to profit if Meta falls back below $740. The trade shows at least one large market participant hedging against, or fading, the rally that has driven shares near their August 2025 record.

The BlockWest read. The options data matter less for what Meta’s stock did Monday than for what large funds are signaling about where AI-driven consumer products fit in equity allocation. A $3.9 billion premium day built mostly on calls tells desks that Muse’s download numbers are now a tradable catalyst, not a footnote, forcing rival social platforms to justify why they lack a comparable assistant story of their own.

Meta’s next scheduled catalyst is whether Muse’s download momentum holds into October, when the heavily traded 775 and 800-strike calls expire, a window that will test whether Monday’s bullish positioning was a durable repricing or a short-term chase of the app’s early success.