Shopify Stock Draws $1.67M Bearish Put Bet as Shares Drift Near Midpoint of 52-Week Range

By TrendSpider Editor

A single unusual options contract totaling $1,668,136 in premium hit the tape on Shopify Inc. (SHOP) on Wednesday, flagging a notably bearish position as shares trade at $139.385, down 0.31% on the session. The contract is a deep out-of-the-money put with a strike of $125 expiring in September 2027,

Shopify Stock Draws $1.67M Bearish Put Bet as Shares Drift Near Midpoint of 52-Week Range

A single unusual options contract totaling $1,668,136 in premium hit the tape on Shopify Inc. (SHOP) on Wednesday, flagging a notably bearish position as shares trade at $139.385, down 0.31% on the session. The contract is a deep out-of-the-money put with a strike of $125 expiring in September 2027, and its open interest reading of 2,076% signals this is far from routine hedging activity. With SHOP currently sitting near the midpoint of its 52-week range of $94 to $182.19, the timing of this trade raises meaningful questions about where one large player sees the stock headed over the next year.

Key Drivers of the SHOP Stock Move

• Main Catalyst: One unusual put contract was detected on SHOP with a $125 strike, expiring September 17, 2027, carrying $1,668,136 in total premium. The open interest reading clocked in at 2,076% above normal levels, with a size of 872 contracts, making this the sole but highly significant unusual options activity flagged today.
• Bull Case: The $125 strike sits roughly 10.3% below the current price of $139.385, meaning the position remains out of the money and would only become profitable if SHOP experiences a meaningful decline from current levels. Bulls can argue the stock has already demonstrated resilience by recovering significantly from its 52-week low of $94, and a trade of this nature may simply reflect portfolio-level hedging rather than a directional conviction bet.
• Bear Case: An open interest reading of 2,076% on a single contract is a rare and aggressive signal. The $1,668,136 in premium committed suggests a well-capitalized player is willing to pay a significant price for downside protection or a bearish directional play through September 2027. A move toward the $125 strike would represent a pullback of more than 10% from current levels and would push SHOP meaningfully closer to the lower end of its 52-week range.

The forward setup for SHOP carries notable uncertainty heading into the back half of 2026. The stock remains well off its 52-week high of $182.19, having given up a substantial portion of its peak-year gains, and today's bearish options activity adds a layer of caution to the near-term outlook. The expiration date of September 17, 2027 means this trader is taking a long-duration view, suggesting the bearish thesis is not tied to any single near-term catalyst but rather a broader concern about where Shopify trades over the next 12-plus months. With the position firmly out of the money at the current price, the coming months of price action will be critical in determining whether this bet gains traction or expires worthless.

SHOP Unusual Options Activity

One unusual options contract was flagged on SHOP today, representing the entirety of the unusual flow detected:

• Type: Put | Strike: $125 | Expiry: September 17, 2027 | Volume/Size: 872 contracts | Open Interest Reading: 2,076% above normal levels

The total premium associated with this single contract came in at $1,668,136. The 2,076% open interest reading is the defining characteristic of this flow, indicating that the volume on this contract dwarfed its existing open interest by a factor of more than 20 times, a hallmark of a freshly initiated directional position rather than a close-out of an existing trade.

SHOP Seasonality

September has historically been a challenging month for growth and technology-oriented equities broadly, and a put contract initiated at the very start of September with a one-year duration may reflect awareness of that seasonal tendency layered on top of a longer-term bearish view. If near-term September weakness materializes, it could provide an early tailwind for this position before the trade has even had time to fully develop.

SHOP Relative Performance

SHOP is currently trading at $139.385, which places it roughly 23.5% below its 52-week high of $182.19 and approximately 48% above its 52-week low of $94. Today's session decline of 0.31% is modest in isolation, but the stock's position in the lower half of its annual range underscores the broader underperformance relative to where bullish momentum peaked over the past year. The bearish options flow detected today suggests at least one market participant believes that underperformance relative to peak levels has further room to run.