One measure of GameStop options positioning is the most bullishly tilted since 2024’s meme stock mania

Ahead of GameStop’s earnings on Tuesday, one measure of options market positioning is the most bullishly tilted since Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, was building up a massive bet on the company in the second quarter of last year, kicking off a frenzy in the stock.

The open interest in GameStop calls is 3.62x higher than the open interest in puts as of Friday.

What’s driving this? Well, mainly that put activity has gone dormant: open interest in bearish contracts is lingering near its 2023 lows (which were the lows for the past decade). Meanwhile, open interest in calls has been grinding higher, but is only about one-third of its Q1 2021 peak.

It’s not a lock that this positioning is straightforwardly bullish, as calls can be bought or sold to open. But given GameStop’s history as a meme stock darling, it’s a fairly safe assumption that’s the case. Aside from the 2021 mania, most spikes in call open interest relative to puts have occurred during, or just ahead of, big run-ups in the stock.

For this week’s expiry in particular, that ratio of calls to puts is even higher, at 3.85. These derivatives tied to earnings are quite pricey. The implied one-day change following the report is plus or minus about 12.3%. GameStop hasn’t moved that much following either of its past two earnings reports, though it did in the two prior to that.

If you’re more fundamental than flow inclined, there aren’t many analysts putting out earnings estimates for the company. Adjusted earnings per share are expected to come in at $0.09 on revenues of $1.478 billion, with adjusted net income of $33.45 million for its holiday quarter.