GOOGL Options Flow: $44.1M Bullish Premium Ahead of Tonight's Print
Three January $360 call prints totaling $4.77M lead the tape into Alphabet's Q3 report after the close
Photo by Nathana Rebouças on Unsplash
GOOGL net premium hit $44.1M bullish ahead of tonight's print, with $4.77M in January $360 calls leading the whale-sized flow on the tape.
The January $360 calls set the tone
The largest prints on the GOOGL tape today came in one contract. The $360 call expiring January 15, 2027 traded three times for $2.20M, $2.18M and $0.39M, a combined $4.77M. Two near identical $2M tickets in the same strike and expiry look like a single buyer working an order in pieces, not scattered retail interest.
The strike matters. GOOGL closed Tuesday at $316.83, so $360 sits 13.6% above spot. That is a position built for a meaningful rerating, not a hedge. The expiry also clears tonight's report by eleven weeks, which gives the trade room to be right on direction without needing to be right on timing.
Net premium confirms the lean
Today's net premium impact on GOOGL is $44.1M, bullish. The whale-sized prints we can see individually add up to only about $5.06M, so most of that net figure came from flow that did not clear the size threshold on its own. Treat the January $360 block as the visible tip of a broader call bias, not the whole of it.
The rest of the large flow was thin. A $380 call and a $410 call, both December 18, 2026, printed just $0.05M and $0.02M. Those are lottery tickets next to the January block, and they say little by themselves.
Short dated puts are small and look like hedges
Against the call premium, the bearish side is modest. A $317.5 put expiring October 30 traded for $0.08M and a $290 put on the same expiry traded for $0.03M. Both expire two days after the report, so they are earnings week protection, and the dollar amounts are too small to read as a directional bet against the stock.
The $317.5 strike sits almost exactly at yesterday's close, which makes it a straddle leg or a hedge on long stock. The $290 put is a tail cover about 8.5% below spot. Together they total $0.11M against $4.95M in calls among the listed prints.
Positioning versus the implied move
Alphabet reports after the close today, with consensus near $3.02 in EPS on revenue around $128 billion. Options markets are pricing a move of roughly 6% in either direction by week's end, which frames a range of about $303 to $338. A $360 strike is well outside that band, so the January buyer is paying for a post earnings trend, not a one day gap.
The chart gives that view a ceiling to test. Resistance sits around $352 to $357, just below the $360 strike, and support is near $315 to $316. The stock is about 21.6% under its May record of $408.61, so the January calls are effectively a bet that the range breaks higher. For live prints as they hit the tape, see the [Whale Alerts dashboard](/whalealerts).
What to watch next
Tomorrow's open decides whether this flow was early or wrong. A hold above $315 keeps the path toward $352 to $357 intact, and a close back above that zone puts the $360 calls near the money. A sustained break under $315 opens the $300 to $294 area, and the October 30 puts at $290 and $317.5 become the contracts to track.
Check whether the January $360 volume converts to open interest in the next session. That will show whether the $4.77M was a fresh position or a roll. The full schedule of reports around Alphabet is on the [earnings calendar](/earnings-calendar).