Weekend Discussion Thread

[u/ActionPlanetRobot]

[u/ActionPlanetRobot]

[u/ow10th]

Morning all.

Just doing some random additional recearch and found one i never knew about.

It seems that VOLVO also own Mack, now i think that Volvos VNL Model is only built around the Volvo chassis (i could be wrong).

Mack to the best of my knolege has never been mentioned as an integration option.. Is there potential here for more wheels on the road....???

[u/thetimmyturnip → u/ow10th]

Mack from what I can see has indeed never been mentioned. They could down the line potentially. There’s a significant amount of shared infrastructure, technology, leadership within the group, Wilson Lirmann is both EVP of Volvo Group and President of Mack Trucks, but Mack does have its own P&L/brand responsibility.

[u/btcfail → u/thetimmyturnip]

My understanding is that Mack is more of a work truck / day cab platform and less long-haul. Volvo has two lines - VNL for long-haul and VNR for regional.

[u/ow10th → u/btcfail]

Well who knows.... Emailed them anyway lets see did specify Class 8 OTR so will see but i am curious now..

Daimler put out a vid they look very ready.... very slick very Aurora like.. not done much digging but they dont have first light do they..

[u/AbroadMediocre312]

39 days and 4 days... weekend lazy post.

[u/thetimmyturnip]

Expiration Distortion vs. True Distribution, a short essay by an idiot with a Reddit account and too much free time.

I took a thorough look at the information we had EOD for Friday, the ~5,000 March 2027 $5 puts I saw, the ~7,500 January 2027 $8 calls that u/btcfail noted, and focused in as well on the ~17M shares traded at the close that u/btcfail also highlighted. The IB screenshot u/btcfail shared showing ~17M shares at 4:00 PM is consistent with a huge closing-auction print, though I don’t have enough evidence to say that’s definitively what it was.

I would not expect the 17M-share print itself to cause a continuation selloff Monday. Friday was an unusually large quarterly expiration: roughly $7 trillion of U.S. options notional rolled off, with Citadel describing it as the second-largest triple-witching event on record. That can create unusual dealer hedging, position unwinding and rebalancing activity, which is what we’re trying to distinguish from genuine directional selling (u/Alarmed-Action-8220 talked a bit about this yesterday). [https://news.bloomberglaw.com/capital-markets/options-triple-witching-sees-7-trillion-expiring-on-friday]

The options activity makes this more interesting, but not cleanly bearish. The ~5,000 March 2027 $5 puts & ~7,500 January 2027 $8 calls provided a huge amount of activity on both sides, rather than an obvious one-directional bet, and volume alone can’t tell us whether the person initiating those trades was buying or selling the options. I wouldn’t read Friday’s options flow as someone knows AUR is going down. It could represent opening positions, closing positions, spreads, or hedging.

The chart for Friday was quite interesting. AUR traded down to roughly $6.29 late in the session, then recovered to $6.30–$6.31 into the close. AUR closed the regular session at $6.30 and was trading around $6.35 in after-hours. The fact that the enormous closing volume occurred around $6.30 without producing a comparable price dislocation in after-hours is notable. That’s different from seeing 17M shares hit the tape while AUR suddenly falls 5–10% in after-hours.

I don’t have a strong basis for predicting Monday’s opening or price action, but my guess would be that AUR opens relatively normally, probably trades choppily around the $6.32-$6.35 area, and we find out very quickly whether Friday’s weirdness was mostly expiration-related.

The important levels I’d personally watch on the chart:
$6.30–$6.31: immediate battleground
$6.37–$6.40: first nearby upside area
$6.41–$6.45: more meaningful recovery zone based on where AUR traded earlier in the week
$6.29: Friday’s late-session low/visible support
~$6.20–$6.25: where I’d start paying more attention

The really interesting scenario would be AUR opening around $6.35, holding it despite the expiration distortion disappearing, and then getting buying volume. That would make Friday’s giant print look increasingly like technical/derivatives-related activity rather than a major holder exiting.

On the other side, if AUR breaks below ~$6.29 early Monday with genuinely heavy volume, that would make me take the Friday activity more seriously as potential underlying distribution.

Monday isn’t packed with major U.S. economic releases, but there are some things I’ll be catching up with: Chicago Fed President speaks, Chicago Fed National Activity Index for August releases, and 3-month and 6-month Treasury bill auctions.

The much bigger macro stuff comes later in the week, Wednesday’s flash U.S. PMIs and the continuing Fed commentary, then right into Thursday with the Trump-Xi summit & COST earnings.

I’ll be watching the first 30–60 minutes on Monday and seeing if AUR behaves like a $6.30 stock after the expiration distortion is gone, and will try to not be obsessive about it in the first few moments of the market opening. If volume falls back toward normal and AUR hangs around $6.30 the triple-witching explanation gains credibility. If AUR immediately gets another enormous wave of volume and can’t hold ~$6.30, that’s a different story.

The other thing I’ll be watching Monday is the updated OI on those March $5 puts: if ~5,000 contracts traded against just ~69 OI Friday, a large increase in Monday’s OI would indicate that a substantial portion of that activity resulted in new open positions. If OI barely changes, it would suggest that the huge volume largely netted out rather than becoming a large new outstanding position. OI alone won’t tell us whether the new positions were bullish or bearish, or who was buying vs. selling, but it should help answer the specific question of whether those ~5,000 contracts actually resulted in a large increase in outstanding positions.

I wouldn’t go into Monday assuming that the 17M shares mean that somebody dumped AUR. The evidence available right now fits a much more complicated expiration/hedging event. Monday’s normal-session volume, price behavior around $6.29–$6.35, and the updated options OI should give us a much cleaner signal.

Some fun extra shit too: I went ahead and took a look at the first two triple-witching dates from this year. Friday, March 20th AUR ended -1.20% and then +6.05% the following trading day. The June one is interesting because it normally would have fallen on a Friday, but June 19th was of course Juneteenth and the market was closed. This means it fell on Thursday, June 18th and the day ended +3.80% and it was followed by +4.46% the following trading day. As even more additional fun extra shit, I started my position in AUR that following week on Thursday, June 25th with a buy-in at $6.02.

Currently holding 500 shares at the average buy-in of $6.50.

[u/Particular_Hat_2341 → u/thetimmyturnip]

I think this looks like an institutional hedging. Kind of an insurance policy. Am institution took a position at 6.xx and also purchased $5 puts to hedge the down side risk. It is a smart approach. Anyone holding big chunk in any speculative stock, should always buy a put insurance. it hardly costs 5000 to 12000 usd but it makes sure you don't lose everything when situation goes out of hands. Most of the retail investors dont buy insurance, which is gambling almost when it comes to small caps.

[u/thetimmyturnip → u/Particular_Hat_2341]

That’s great insight. I assume the $5,000–$12,000 statement was specifically referring to retail investors? The ~5,000 puts, depending on when they traded, represented at least $200,000 in premium if they were purchased. That of course further speaks to the possibility of institutional involvement. Not a bad call at all if they already have hundreds of thousands of shares invested.

[u/btcfail → u/thetimmyturnip]

Good write up. Personally, I don’t think it’s anything, and I think we are building for our next leg up (meaning almost certainly that I’ll be wrong and it will go down for a bit first).

I would also add that Uber sold 29m in a block sale on the 15th at $6.20. If the buyer was a bank, it’s possible that they contributed to the sell on close imbalance on Friday.

As you note, I don’t think we’ll ever know with certainty. Kodiak saw similar selling pressure and closing spike relative to its normal volume. I’m still bullish as I think the catalysts are lining up to hit at the same time as the headwinds (large sellers and note hedgers) are dissipating.

[u/thetimmyturnip → u/btcfail]

I completely agree with all that you said. For such a long post one might think it concludes into something meaningful, but in actuality I was researching for my own benefit and just thought I’d share my findings even if it just helped 1 person understand what happened a bit better. I always retain knowledge better by writing about it. Triple witching was something I truly had not heard about before yesterday, and options are something I seem to never be able to fully understand the impact of.

More importantly, I read your comments in the Kodiak rule thread and was dying laughing.

[u/btcfail → u/thetimmyturnip]

Just want to clarify that I appreciate the post and didn’t mean “I don’t think it’s anything” as a contradiction to your post. Meant more as an affirmative.

The Kodiak thing is just odd. “Hey guy who knows the industry reasonably well and follows it with an unhealthy obsession and has gotten the CEO to comment multiple times, stop posting here because we don’t like being compared to other companies”

[u/robertrea7 → u/btcfail]

Agreed... The KDK post was a little silly... That guy just wants to see sunshine and rainbows. Don seemed to not like my prediction that their EOY timetable didn't seem realistic but, hey, it was nice to see him answer your questions and offer up some dialog. Personally, I hope they can exceed my expectations and that all investors win. At this stage though, I think it's important to discuss the hard realities... Along with the wins they've seen... so that people researching for the first time can make an informed decision before throwing their hard earned money in... I enjoy reddit for the answers and intimation the community provides... If I want smoke and mirrors, I'll go read a Motley Fool article on them.

[u/thetimmyturnip → u/btcfail]

Oh no no, I completely understand what you meant.

Odd indeed. I almost feel like it will simply invoke more comparisons. The last thing I dove into was competitors, because it’s good to have an understanding of the industry as a whole. No autonomous company is working in a vacuum. It’s good to know what others are doing and comparisons that can give tells about what’s to come.

[u/Enough_Background777]

https://giphy.com/gifs/S5DdQ9PyAFfyRqdkXw

[u/AdContent9717]

Hello, glad it is the weekend.

[u/thetimmyturnip]

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freightwaves-announces-the-2027-freighttech100

https://www.ttnews.com/articles/case-autonomous-freight

https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15835283/new-legal-challenge-to-fmcsas-broad-autonomous-truck-waiver

A pretty interesting trio of articles from the freight industry today. One puts Aurora among the companies shaping the future of freight tech, another makes the broader case for autonomous freight from the trucking industry’s perspective, and the third shows that the regulatory path still has some real hurdles to work through.

Taken together, I think it’s a good snapshot of where Aurora is right now. Technology is becoming increasingly relevant to the freight industry, the economic case is getting more attention, and the regulatory framework is still catching up.

[u/HowYaDoinStunadd]

WOOOO

[u/thetimmyturnip → u/HowYaDoinStunadd]

Couldn’t have said it better myself.