U.S. stock futures are trading broadly higher this morning, placing the major market indices on course for solid October gains. Attention turns this morning toward economic data, with the Federal Reserve kicking off its two-day policy meeting and house prices and consumer sentiment data on tap later this morning.

As for October gains, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently up more than 4% on the month, with the S&P 500 Index adding about 2% and the Nasdaq Composite poised for an October gain of just over 3%.

As for today’s trading, futures on the Dow are up 0.12%, S&P 500 futures have added 0.16% and Nasdaq-100 futures are rolling with a gain of 0.25%.

On the options front, volume fell overall on Monday, but still remained well above October’s average. Overall, about 16.1 million calls and 13.3 million puts crossed the tape yesterday. On the CBOE, the single-session equity put/call volume ratio jumped to 0.69 amid yesterday’s selling, though the 10-day moving average held firm at 0.65.

Taking a closer look at Monday’s options activity, General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) put volume jumped again after Fitch Ratings lowered its issuer default rating to negative. Elsewhere, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) call options flew in the face of a bearish cryptocurrency report, while Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) continued to draw optimism ahead of next week’s quarterly report.

General Electric Company (GE)

GE has brought a lot of bad things to light in the past year, with quite a few skeletons emerging in the past couple of weeks — including a “shadow jet” for former CEO Jeff Immelt that GE’s board knew nothing about. Adding to GE stock’s misery, Fitch Ratings downgraded the company’s issuer default rating to negative from stable yesterday citing “several areas of concern” in the company’s most recent quarterly earnings report.

GE stock hit a fresh 52-week low as a result, prompting options traders to pile into puts in anticipation of additional declines. Volume rose to 473,000 contracts on Monday, with puts gobbling up 56% of the day’s take. The result of the recent attention to GE puts is a rising November put/call open interest ratio, which currently rests at 1.29.

The most heavily targeted November put strikes, the $23 and $22, with more than 120,000 contracts each, are now trading firmly in the money. Meanwhile, both the $19 and $20 strikes are gaining momentum, with 25,000 and 50,000 contracts in residence, respectively. A breach of $20 for GE could see the shares dip into the teens before bargain hunters finally emerge to scoop the shares out of the rubble.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD)

The cryptocurrency mining trend for semiconductor manufacturers has always been a fad … a flash in the pan for short-term revenue generation. When it comes to AMD, its real value lies elsewhere, in artificial intelligence, server-side processors and data centers. But that hasn’t stopped Wall Street from speculating and bidding the shares up on the cryptocurrency fad.

So, it should come as no surprise that AMD plunged more than 8% yesterday after Morgan Stanley said that cryptocurrency mining demand would fall 50% next year, resulting in a $250 million drop in revenue. The brokerage also warned of a drop in demand for graphics processors for 2018.

AMD options traders appeared to view yesterday’s plunge as an opportunity. Volume came in at 434,000 contracts, or nearly 2.5 times AMD’s daily average. Calls made up 58% of the day’s take, as speculators seemed to bet on a rebound for AMD stock. This optimism is evident in the November series, where the put/call OI ratio has dipped to 0.64, with calls nearly doubling puts among front-month options.

The most popular November strike is the $13 call, which sports OI of more than 55,000 contracts. Another 22,000 calls are also open at the $14 strike for the series, indicating that options traders expect a solid rebound for AMD.

Nvidia Corporation (NVDA)

With Morgan Stanley so bearish on cryptocurrency mining demand, I would have expected Nvidia to plunge alongside AMD. After all, Nvidia is building graphics processors specifically designed to mine cryptocurrency. Such was not the case.

With earnings set to arrive on Thursday next week, NVDA stock pushed nearly 1% higher yesterday and is set to trade north of $204 in today’s trading. For the record, Nvidia is expected to post a profit of 94 cents per share on revenue of $2.36 billion. That said, both AMD and Morgan Stanley have warned of a slowdown in demand, which could negatively impact Nvidia’s outlook.

NVDA options traders are having none of it, however, as calls claimed 67% of the more than 152,000 contracts traded yesterday. Still, there is some caution ahead of the event, as the weekly Nov 10 put/call OI ratio rests at 1.18, with puts outpacing calls among options most affected by Nvidia’s earnings.

Still, this rising preference for calls ahead of earnings makes me think that InvestorPlace contributor Ian Bezek’s call to take profits now is a good idea.

As of this writing, Joseph Hargett did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.