SanDisk surges 11%, nearly $100 million in short-term options flood into memory chip stocks, "AI stock god" suspected to be making a comeback

BlockBeats news, September 19: During Friday's trading session, approximately $96 million in short-term bullish options flooded into SanDisk (SNDK), Micron (MU), Intel (INTC), and Marvell (MRVL), with SanDisk briefly surging over 11%. These options all expire on October 2. Trading data shows approximately 10,000 call options for Micron, about 4,200 for SanDisk, roughly 20,000 for Intel, and around 3,500 for Marvell, with total premiums of approximately $96 million.

CNBC host Jim Cramer posted on X platform that based on the trading patterns, "it looks exactly like Leopold is back," pointing to AI investor Leopold Aschenbrenner and his fund Situational Awareness.

According to regulatory filings, Situational Awareness's two largest holdings were precisely SanDisk and Micron, with positions of approximately $5.7 billion and $5.6 billion respectively at the end of June. On September 11, the Financial Times reported that Aschenbrenner had rebuilt positions in AMD, Intel, SK Hynix, SanDisk, and CoreWeave through flexible options. Nomura strategist Charlie McElligott discovered at the time that approximately $315 million in cumulative multi-day options premiums flowed into AI and semiconductor targets.

Aschenbrenner had previously attracted attention for high-leverage bets on AI and semiconductors. His fund plunged 67% in July during the AI sector correction, after which he significantly reduced positions. At the end of July, in a letter to investors, he stated he would "learn the necessary lessons" and promised that future public market investments would be managed on a "fully paid basis."

Currently, SEC filing documents have not yet disclosed the identity of the buyer of the nearly $100 million in options mentioned above, so it cannot yet be confirmed whether the trades came from Aschenbrenner. Unlike previous use of total return swaps (TRS) for leverage, market speculation suggests he is now using fully paid options, where maximum loss is theoretically limited to premiums paid, but the short-term nature means time value decay and Gamma risk are both elevated.