POET Pre-Market: The Fed Hiked and the Put Side Lost

POET Pre-Market: The Fed Hiked and the Put Side Lost

The Fed rate hike printed. A unanimous quarter point to 3.75%-4.00%, the first increase since 2023, and the Dow gave up 631 points after Kevin Warsh's press conference. The projections stung more than the move — another hike penciled in for 2026 and no easing in the median through 2027. Higher for longer, in writing.

POET stock's answer came this morning. Bid up 3.7% at $7.67 pre-market on no company news at all. The hike landed, the tape absorbed it, and a high-beta photonics name is trading through Wednesday's close before the bell. That tells you which side of the board had it right.

The put side lost

We mapped the barbell in POET options going into the decision: fresh $8 and $7.50 calls on one end, new $7 puts on the other, nobody in the middle. The verdict's in. At $7.67, the $7 puts — 2,876 of them, still growing yesterday — expire worthless at tomorrow's triple witching. So do the $7.50 puts. The lottery tickets survived instead. The $7.50 calls are in the money, and 9,795 calls at the $8 strike sit 33 cents out with one session left.

The $8 fight is live

Our gamma map flagged the mid-$7.70s as the level where dealers short this week's fresh calls have to start buying. That's exactly where the pre-market offer is parked — 5,000-plus shares at $7.70. Take that out and the $8 magnet turns on. Stall, and the pin zone into Friday's close is $7.50 to $7.75. Either way, the stack from $8.50 on up — roughly 24,000 contracts — still comes off the board at tomorrow's triple witching. The cleanup happens; the only question is whether the $8 line gets rescued first.

Monday's wall and the Málaga buyer

After witching, the gamma map simplifies to one structure: 13,031 calls at the September 25 $8.50 strike, sitting right on the 30-day volume shelf at $8.56. That's the ceiling POET Technologies trades under during ECOC week. And the catalyst buyer keeps coming — the October 2 $10 calls have gone from 466 contracts Monday to 1,304 this morning, the $11s doubled to 1,497, and the $10-$12 stack in that expiry now tops 5,000 contracts. Someone is dating serious upside to the far side of Málaga.

We said it into the decision and it goes for AI stocks broadly: the first tick after a binary event is positioning, not verdict. Same rule applies at tomorrow's close. Witching Friday, Málaga Monday. The board's about to get a lot lighter.