Yes. The USO tape was captured Friday, August 28 at 8:53:47 PM EDT, well after the 4:00 PM close. It contains Friday’s regular-session tape through 15:59:58.
USO tape — desk read
My diagnosis:
Constructive but capped, package-heavy flow. The modest bullish tilt came primarily from put selling—not from broad call buying—while traders sold nearer upside and bought farther upside wings.
USO advanced from $128.13 to $129.69, up 1.22%. It reached $130.09 at 13:08 before fading $0.40 from the high.
Core figures:
- 9,463 prints and 61,976 contracts
- $14.38 million gross premium
- Calls: $8.84 million, or 61.5%
- Puts: $5.54 million, or 38.5%
- Explicit spreads: $7.54 million, or 52.4%
- Execution side unknown: 73.6% of premium
- Clear single-leg delta: +25,738 shares
- Exact-deduplicated delta: +21,508 shares
- Continuous quote-location estimate: +30,343 shares
The three directional measures agree, but the magnitude is modest and confidence is limited by the enormous midpoint/spread share.
Session progression
| Session | USO move | Clear delta | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:30–10:00 | +$0.01 | +27,223 | Heavy put selling into a flat open |
| 10:00–12:00 | +$0.79 | +9,795 | Constructive participation in the rally |
| 12:00–14:00 | +$0.63 | −17,061 | Bearish divergence as USO approached its high |
| 14:00–15:30 | −$0.25 | +16,576 | Buyers accepted exposure during the pullback |
| 15:30–close | +$0.15 | −10,795 | Late call selling/overwriting |
| Last 30 minutes | −$0.08 | −8,161 | Defensive, but below the materiality threshold |
There were no extended-session prints after 16:00.
What actually drove the bullish delta
Calls contributed −10,769 shares of clear delta, while puts contributed +36,507. This was therefore a put-selling-led tape.
The strongest constructive campaigns were:
- September 18 $120 puts: 1,280 sold versus 46 bought; $204,201 sold and +26,647 delta. The deduplicated result was identical. This is strong execution evidence of near-term confidence around $120, although OI is unavailable to determine whether positions opened or closed.
- September 4 $145 calls: 6,554 bought versus 385 sold; +26,166 delta, remaining +26,138 after deduplication. These were inexpensive upside-wing calls—large contract volume but only about $89,500 in classified purchases.
- September 25 $140 calls: 326 bought and none clearly sold; +9,131 raw delta and +7,927 deduplicated.
- September 18 $160 calls: almost 1,000 bought versus four sold, but only about $22,000 of premium. This was tail-upside speculation rather than major capital deployment.
The opposition
- September 4 $138 calls: 3,774 sold versus 2,329 bought; −21,180 delta, strengthening to −22,275 after deduplication.
- September 2 $130 calls: 384 sold versus 78 bought; −14,681 delta in both views. With USO closing at $129.69, this is the most immediate overhead evidence.
- October $120 puts: 306 bought versus 132 sold; approximately −4,800 delta.
- September 11 $120, December $100 and January $118 puts: additional downside protection.
- September 2027 $150 calls: one clear 90-contract sale representing $124,200 and −4,140 delta.
The similar full-session volume in the September 4 $138 and $145 calls—roughly 7,100 contracts each—makes a sliced short $138/long $145 call vertical campaign plausible. That would represent capped-upside or bearish call-spread positioning. The legs were not reliably synchronized as exchange-confirmed packages, so this remains a strong structural hypothesis, not proof.
Large spread campaigns
Most institutional-sized packages printed at midpoint and cannot be assigned direction safely:
- December $132 puts/$137 calls: 62 packages, 467 matched contracts and $1.09 million gross. Only 4.5% had a known side.
- September 18 $118/$130 calls: 300 contracts and $506,100 gross.
- September 4 $131/$135 calls: three bursts totaling 1,445 matched contracts and $416,840.
- January $115/$120 puts: 200 contracts and $288,000, accompanied at the same timestamp by a 200-contract October/January $115 put calendar worth $168,000.
- September 2 $132/$133 puts: 234 matched contracts and approximately $209,000, spread over many small child executions.
These are likely vertical, calendar or rolled structures, but their economic direction is unknowable from midpoint prints. The confidently directional reconstructed spreads totaled less than $70,000—too little to determine the overall tape.
Bottom line
This was not a broad call-buying breakout tape. It was a two-way, institutional and spread-heavy session with:
- Near-term $120 put selling
- Cheap upside-wing call buying at $140–$160
- Nearer $130–$138 call selling
- Longer-dated downside hedging
- Late-session call overwriting
That combination looks more like bullish carry with capped upside and retained tail protection than an urgent directional chase.
For follow-through, $130–$130.09 is the immediate confirmation area and $128.08 is Friday’s intraday support. Continued September $120 put selling would reinforce the constructive read. More $130/$138 call selling combined with October/January put buying would shift the interpretation toward distribution and defensive positioning.
Data quality was good after supplying the omitted session date in a temporary analysis copy: all 9,463 rows reconciled with zero skips. There were 592 exact duplicate-excess rows, but the positive directional conclusion survived deduplication. The original tape was not modified.