Nvidia put trade turns $8.3 million into about $196 million on paper

An unnamed trader who bought Nvidia put options a month before Jensen Huang admitted his affair now shows a paper profit of about $196 million, the Financial Times calculated, according to euro2day. The trader paid about $8.3 million on 12 October, when Nvidia shares traded near $226.

How the trade works

A put gives you the right to sell a share at a set price, the strike. It gains value as the stock falls below that price. Macro Risk Advisors described the structure to the FT, and both legs expire in January:

• bought 180,000 put contracts with a $150 strike
• sold 280,000 put contracts with a $100 strike
• net cost about $8.32 million

Selling the cheaper $100 puts paid for most of the $150 puts. When the trader opened the position, Nvidia would have had to fall about a third to reach the upper strike, so the market priced the bet as a long shot.

Nvidia closed near $166 on Thursday, and the paper gain reached about 24 times the premium. Each contract covers 100 shares, so the long leg pays $18 million for every dollar the stock ends below $150 at expiry. The best case is a close at exactly $100, worth about $892 million.

Below $100 the extra 100,000 sold puts start to cost the trader money, and a deep enough collapse would turn the gain into a loss.

What happened in between

Four days before Huang left, the board still backed him in a statement.

“The Board has confidence in Jensen and his leadership team and will provide further updates as appropriate.”

— Nvidia board of directors, statement of 8 November 2026

Quote source: CNBC, Nvidia board statement, 8 November 2026.

That day Huang admitted an affair with an executive at a Nvidia customer whom US officials suspected of working for China. The board opened an investigation, and on 12 November Huang resigned. We traced the full scandal timeline and the day of Huang's resignation in earlier reports.

Nobody has said who placed the trade or why. The position went on almost four weeks before Huang's admission, and the FT report makes no accusation.

The other side of the market

On Hyperliquid, traders long Nvidia perpetual futures paid for the same move. On 12 November the platform's liquidation engine closed an account holding about 9,960 contracts near $154, and its owner lost about $1.54 million, Lookonchain data show.

If you want to copy a trade like this, size it so the premium is money you can lose: deep out-of-the-money puts expire worthless far more often than they pay 24 to 1. And read the short leg before you sell it, because it creates the losses below $100.

The profit is a paper figure based on FT calculations, and the trader has not been identified. This report is not investment advice.