🎰 NBIS $1.7M Deep-OTM $350 Call — An 11-Day Lottery Ticket Worth Understanding

📅 June 29, 2026 | 🔥 Unusual Activity Detected

✅ Update (2026-06-30): Next-day OPRA OI confirms the $350 call OPENED — OI rose 121 → 14,517 (Δ +14,396, even larger than the 10,000-lot block, so additional same-strike buying joined it). The bullish open is confirmed; see the resolved box below.

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🎯 The Quick Take

Someone just paid $1.7M for NBIS calls at the $350 strike expiring in just 11 days — with the stock sitting at ≈$259, that strike is ≈35% out of the money. The fill came through as a facilitated single-leg auction block (a known counterparty took the other side at a negotiated price) — not an urgent lit sweep. In dollar terms $1.7M is a modest bet, and the structure is pure speculation: it needs a massive, fast move that has no confirmed catalyst inside the 11-day window. This is worth understanding, not copying.

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📊 Company Overview

Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ: NBIS) is an Amsterdam-headquartered "neocloud" AI-infrastructure company that builds and operates GPU-dense data centers and a full-stack AI cloud platform for training and inference workloads, per Wikipedia and TechCrunch. It was carved out of Yandex N.V.'s 2024 restructuring and has become one of the hottest AI infrastructure names of 2026:

• Market Cap: ≈$60-72 billion (swings sharply day-to-day given extreme volatility)
• Industry: AI cloud infrastructure / GPU data centers (Technology)
• Current Price: ≈$259 (June 29, 2026 trade)
• 52-Week Range: $43.89 low to $299.86 high — roughly a 5x off the low
• 2026 YTD: +167-187%, per TIKR and MarketBeat
• Four business segments: Nebius AI Cloud (GPU clusters — the growth engine), Toloka (AI data labeling), TripleTen (tech bootcamps), Avride (autonomous driving R&D), per Umbrex
• Hyperscaler backlog: ≈$46B+ (Microsoft ≈$17-19B + Meta ≈$27B), per The Motley Fool

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💰 The Option Flow Breakdown

The Tape — June 29, 2026 at 09:43:28 ET:

Flow Type: 🤝 Single-Leg Auction Block (facilitated price-improvement, known counterparty)

What happened in plain English:

At 09:43 this morning, a desk paid $1.68 per contract for 10,116 NBIS $350 calls expiring July 10, 2026 — totaling $1.7M in premium. The dominant mechanism was a single-leg facilitated auction block: a known counterparty sold the other side at a negotiated, broker-intermediated price. About 90% of the fill landed at or near the offer — the buyer was willing to pay up, but this was a worked transaction, not someone storming the open book.

The math on what this trade needs:

• Stock today: ≈$259.02
• Strike: $350
• Gap needed: +$90.98 / +≈35% in just 11 calendar days (fewer than 8 trading sessions)
• Breakeven at expiration: $350 + $1.68 = $351.68 in spot price

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✅ OI RESOLVED (2026-06-30) — OPEN CONFIRMED

The next-day OPRA open-interest snapshot is in, and it confirms the $350 call opened decisively.

The OI rise (+14,396) exceeded the 10,000-lot block itself, so the open is confirmed beyond doubt — and other same-strike buyers added to the position the same day, growing total positioning on the strike even larger than the single headline block implied.

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🤓 What This Actually Means — Plain English

Order type: BTO (Buy to Open) — the buyer opened a brand-new long-call position. They paid $1.7M in premium for the right to buy NBIS shares at $350 any time before July 10.

Structure — the "lottery ticket":

This is a deep out-of-the-money, short-dated long call. Here's what that actually means for how these options behave:

• 🎰 Deep OTM: The $350 strike sits ≈35% above the current stock price of ≈$259. For this trade to pay off at expiration, NBIS needs to close above $351.68 on July 10. That's not a swing — it's a historic moonshot in 11 days.

• ⏰ 11-day window: These options expire on July 10. There are fewer than 8 trading sessions remaining. Time decay (theta) will be brutal — options this short-dated and this far out of the money lose a meaningful portion of their value every day the stock doesn't move sharply.

• 💸 Lotto-style cost structure: Each contract cost $1.68, controlling 100 shares of a $259 stock. The total outlay is $1.7M. Maximum loss is the entire $1.7M (100% of premium) if NBIS closes below $350 on July 10. Maximum gain is in theory unlimited if NBIS makes a historically unusual move.

• 🤝 Mechanism matters — this was not a panic sweep: The facilitated auction block mechanism means a broker matched a buyer and a seller at a negotiated price. There is a known counterparty on the other side who sold these calls, collecting the $1.7M premium. This is categorically different from an aggressive lit sweep where someone is urgently hitting displayed offers. The conviction signal from this mechanism is weaker than from genuine lit aggression.

• 🔍 We cannot see the "why": The tape shows what happened mechanically. Possible explanations include a speculative bet on an unannounced catalyst, a low-cost hedge against a short NBIS position, or a small lottery-ticket allocation within a large book. We do not know, and honesty requires saying so.

The probability math:

The options market is currently pricing in roughly ±20% for 11 days (interpolating between the weekly and monthly OPEX implied moves — see the chart section below). The $350 strike requires nearly +35% — almost double the implied move. That gap is the honest definition of "lottery ticket": a low-probability, high-payout structure. At $1.68 per contract, the market is saying this outcome is unlikely.

Translation for retail traders: This is a genuine lottery ticket — a small premium bet that something dramatic and unexpected happens before July 10. The buyer likely sized this as a minor fraction of a much larger portfolio. Don't read $1.7M as a conviction signal; read it as cheap optionality on a black-swan move.

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📈 Technical Setup — Chart Check-Up

YTD Performance Chart

NBIS has been one of the standout large-cap performers of 2026, up ≈167-187% YTD — a roughly 5x move from its $43.89 52-week low. But the June chart tells an important secondary story: despite positive fundamental news (UK expansion, BofA price-target hike, Nasdaq-100 inclusion), the stock pulled back from a ≈$300 high to the $235-$265 range through late June. NBIS now trades heavily on macro AI sentiment and momentum flows, not just company-specific catalysts.

Key chart observations:

• 🚀 Parabolic YTD rally: From ≈$44 low to ≈$300 peak
• 📉 June consolidation: Pulled back to $235-$265 zone even with positive fundamental backdrop — a sign the name has de-rated from its peak momentum
• 🎢 Extreme volatility: 52-week range of $43.89-$299.86 means the stock can move $50+ in a matter of days. It has done this before. The $350 call buyer is betting it happens again.
• 📊 Current zone: The ≈$259 area sits in the middle of the June consolidation band — not at a clear technical breakout level

Gamma-Based S/R Analysis

Important caveat upfront: NBIS gamma walls are diffuse — they provide soft context, not hard price barriers.

Unlike heavily-traded names (SPY, AAPL, mega-cap tech) where gamma concentrations create strong mechanical price attractors, NBIS's options chain shows no dominant gamma walls. The structured gamma-wall calculations return empty arrays — the gamma exposure is spread too diffusely across the chain to create the pin-magnet dynamics you'd see in a more liquid name.

The nearest notable gamma clusters from the GEX data (modest magnitudes):

• 🔵 $250 (below spot): Put-heavy net gamma — modest support zone where market makers hold net long puts
• 🔵 $240 (below spot): Another put-heavy cluster — secondary support below
• 🟠 $260 (at spot): The largest single-strike gamma near current price (modestly call-heavy, net GEX +0.40) — the closest thing to a call "ceiling" in the data, but its magnitude is minor
• 🟠 $285 (above spot): Notable put-heavy total gamma (2.64 GEX) — potential resistance zone
• 🟠 $300 (above spot): The strongest call-heavy level in the chain above spot (net +1.09 GEX) — a soft resistance zone the bulls need to clear before thinking about $350

For the $350 strike (the trade): There is some call gamma at $350 itself (call GEX 0.449, net +0.422), but it is modest. NBIS is a high-beta momentum name whose direction is driven by news flow and macro AI sentiment, not gamma pinning.

Bottom line: Don't rely on gamma levels to trade NBIS the way you would SPY or NVDA. Use the implied-move ranges below as your primary technical framework.

Implied Move Analysis

What the options market is pricing for upcoming expirations (from the Jun 29 implied-move data):

The most important number for this trade:

The Jul 10 expiry falls between the weekly (3 DTE) and monthly OPEX (18 DTE). Interpolating by time, the options market is pricing roughly ±20% / ±$52 for 11 days — an upper bound of roughly $311. The $350 strike sits ≈$39 above that upper bound.

That's the honest mathematical picture: the options market considers the $350 strike to be well outside the expected range for this expiration. The trade succeeds only if NBIS does something far beyond what implied volatility — already elevated at 11%+ for just 3 days — considers likely.

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🎪 Catalysts

✅ Already Happened (Preceding This Trade)

These are the headline catalysts that drove NBIS's 2026 rally. They are largely priced in and do NOT provide a near-term catalyst within the July 10 window.

• Nasdaq-100 Inclusion (June 22, 2026): NBIS joined the Nasdaq-100, triggering mechanical passive-index buying and broadening institutional ownership. This catalyst is already reflected in the stock price.

• NVIDIA $2B Strategic Investment (March 2026): NVIDIA invested $2B in Nebius, taking an ≈8.3% stake, deepening the partnership as Nebius targets 5+ GW of capacity by 2030. This positions Nebius as essentially an NVIDIA-financed "AI factory" operator.

• Meta ≈$27B Infrastructure Deal (March 16, 2026): Nebius signed a long-term AI-infrastructure supply agreement with Meta worth up to ≈$27B (≈$12B dedicated + up to $15B optional), with deliveries beginning early 2027. Combined with the prior Microsoft contract, this took Nebius's contracted hyperscaler backlog to ≈$46B.

• UK Expansion ≈£1.7B (June 7-8, 2026): Nebius committed ≈£1.7B to new UK AI sites backed by NVIDIA, adding 65 MW by 2027. It also closed its Eigen AI acquisition to integrate inference-optimization into its platform.

• Q1 2026 Earnings (May 13, 2026): Revenue hit $399M — up ≈684% year-over-year — beating consensus of ≈$391.6M. Adjusted EBITDA turned positive at $129.5M. AI-cloud ARR exited Q1 at $1.92B (up 54% QoQ). FY2026 guidance of $3.0-$3.4B in revenue was reiterated.

• Bank of America PT Raise to $280 (June 9, 2026): BofA raised its price target to $280; Citigroup holds the street-high at $287. The consensus is ≈$244, per MarketBeat — note that the consensus is right around or below the current price.

⚠️ Upcoming Catalysts — And Why Jul 10 is Tight

Critical timing flag for this trade: The Jul 10 expiry arrives before any confirmed upcoming catalysts. There are no scheduled earnings, product launches, or major corporate events within the 11-day window as of June 29, 2026. The $350 call buyer has no publicly known catalyst to lean on.

• Q2 2026 Earnings — Expected Mid-to-Late August 2026: Sources vary on the exact date — one source lists July 29, but historical patterns (Q1 reported May 13, ≈6 weeks post-quarter) suggest mid-to-late August. This is the next hard, market-moving event. It is well after the July 10 expiration. Always verify on the official investor-events page. The key metrics to watch: sequential ARR growth, progress toward the $7B-$9B exit-2026 ARR target, connected MW vs the 800-1,000 MW year-end goal, and any new hyperscaler signings.

• Capacity Ramp Milestones (Ongoing): Management targets 800-1,000 MW of connected capacity by year-end 2026 (from ≈170 MW at end-2025). Interim MW announcements can move the stock, but no concrete announcement is expected in the Jul 10 window.

• Possible New Hyperscaler Contract (Speculative): Given the Microsoft + Meta cadence, the market speculates a possible third anchor-tenant announcement in 2H 2026. This is purely speculative — no confirmed deal is pending.

• Microsoft Vineland Revenue Recognition (Ongoing): The $17.4-$19.4B Microsoft contract, which began deliveries in late 2025, should continue converting to recognized ARR through 2H 2026 — a steady fundamental tailwind, not a binary event.

• Pennsylvania 1.2 GW Site Build-Out + 4+ GW Target: Further data-center expansion updates are expected as Nebius builds toward its contracted-power target, but these are longer-cycle announcements, not 11-day events.

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🎲 Price Targets for Jul 10 (This Trade's Expiration)

Using the implied move data and the current ≈$259 spot as reference:

📈 Bull Case — The $350 Call Pays Off (Very Low Probability)

Required: NBIS above $351.68 on July 10

What would cause a +35% move in 11 days:

• 🚀 Surprise announcement of a massive unannounced hyperscaler deal (similar in scale to Meta or Microsoft) with immediate market impact
• 🤝 An unexpected M&A or strategic transaction announcement at a significant premium
• 🌍 A macro event that sends the entire AI-infrastructure sector dramatically higher in days

Probability assessment: Extremely low, and genuinely outside the implied-move cone for this timeframe. NBIS has shown it can move $50+ in a week — the 52-week range confirms this stock is capable of violent swings — but a +35% move in 11 days with no confirmed catalyst is a tail event even by NBIS standards.

P&L if $350 is reached at expiration:

• At $360: $10 intrinsic − $1.68 cost = $8.32/contract profit. On 10,116 contracts = +≈$8.4M (+495%)
• At $380: $30 intrinsic − $1.68 cost = $28.32/contract profit. On 10,116 contracts = +≈$28.6M (+1,685%)

🎯 Base Case — Options Expire Worthless (Most Likely)

Target: NBIS within the ≈$207-$311 implied-move range

The base case for any deep-OTM, short-dated option is simple: the stock stays within the implied range, the $350 calls decay to zero, and the $1.7M premium evaporates.

• 📉 Implied upper bound for 11 days is ≈$311 — the $350 strike requires a further +12% above that
• 📊 No confirmed catalyst exists in the window to drive the necessary move
• ⏰ Theta grinds these options down every day without a significant stock move

For context: Even a 20% NBIS rally from ≈$259 (to ≈$311) — which would already be a dramatic 11-day move — leaves the $350 calls still out of the money and worthless at expiration.

📉 Bear Case — NBIS Falls (Calls Worthless Either Way)

If NBIS trades to $220-$240 on a macro reversal:

A broad AI-sentiment reversal, investor concern about Nebius's ≈$29B external funding gap through 2028, or macro risk-off could push the stock lower. Regardless of the bear case depth:

• The $350 calls are worthless in every scenario below $350
• Max loss is the same: 100% of the $1.7M premium paid

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💡 Four Trading Perspectives

🎰 YOLO Trader — "This IS the Lottery"

Someone just made this exact bet. If you're tempted to copy it, here's the honest math first:

• 💸 Entry cost: $1.68 per contract for the Jul 10 $350 call
• 📉 Base case outcome: Expires worthless. Total loss. This is the most likely outcome.
• 🚀 The only scenario that works: NBIS closes above $351.68 on July 10 — that's a +35% move in 11 days with no confirmed catalyst. It's possible. It's also historically unusual even for NBIS.
• 🎯 Sizing if you proceed: This is a lottery-ticket allocation. No more than 0.5-1% of your portfolio. Treat the entire premium as mentally spent the moment you buy.
• ⏰ Watch it closely: If NBIS gaps up hard in the first 2-3 sessions toward $300+, there may be value to take. Don't hold a deep-OTM option all the way to expiration hoping for a miracle if it hasn't moved.

Risk level: EXTREME | Full 100% loss is the probable outcome

⚖️ Swing Trader — "Get the Duration Right"

If you're genuinely bullish on NBIS over the next 4-8 weeks, the $350 Jul 10 calls are the wrong instrument. The right structure for a swing view:

• 📅 Use longer-dated options — August or September expiry captures the Q2 earnings catalyst (expected mid-to-late August) and gives the fundamental story time to play out
• 🎯 Use strikes closer to the money — The $280-$300 range (vs. $350) has substantially higher delta and a realistic probability of finishing in the money if NBIS reclaims its June highs
• 🛡️ Consider a bull call spread to reduce premium outlay — buy a lower strike call, sell a higher strike call to define risk and reduce cost: for example, a $265/$290 bull call spread for August gives upside exposure with a fraction of the premium and known max loss
• 📊 The fundamental case — $46B+ backlog, 684% YoY revenue growth, positive adjusted EBITDA — is real and compelling for a multi-week or multi-month view. Just match your instrument to your time horizon.

Risk level: Moderate | Match duration to your actual thesis

🛡️ Premium Collector — "The Other Side of This Trade"

The counterparty who sold these $350 calls collected the $1.7M premium. From their perspective, this is a high-probability premium-collection strategy:

• ✅ Probability of profit: High — the $350 strike is very unlikely to be reached in 11 days
• ⚠️ Risk of naked short calls: Unlimited upside exposure if NBIS makes a historic move. Requires significant margin. Not suitable for most retail traders.
• 🛡️ Safer version — sell a call spread: Short $350 call / long $360 or $370 call. This caps your max loss while retaining most of the premium income. Example: collect $1.68 on the $350 short, pay $0.50-$0.80 for the $360 or $370 long — net credit ≈$0.90-$1.18 per spread, defined max loss.
• 📊 The premium collector's thesis: NBIS stays below $350 through July 10 → keep the premium → move on. NBIS's high implied volatility makes premium rich relative to the probability of the far-OTM strike being tested.

Risk level: Moderate to High | Understand tail risk in a momentum name before selling

📚 Beginner — "What Should I Take Away From This?"

Welcome to options flow analysis! This trade has a clear teaching moment:

• 🎓 Deep-OTM calls are lottery tickets by definition. When someone buys calls 35% above the current price with 11 days to expiration, they are making a very aggressive, low-probability bet. "$1.68" feels cheap, but "cheap" in dollar terms does not mean good risk/reward — it reflects a very low probability of success that the options market has priced in.
• 🎓 Theta (time decay) is brutal on short-dated options. Every day that passes with the stock below $350, these options lose a portion of their remaining value. By July 7 (2 sessions before expiry), if NBIS hasn't made its dramatic move, these options will be nearly worthless.
• 🎓 Don't copy a trade just because it looks like "a whale" made it. You don't know the buyer's total portfolio context, their hedging needs, whether they have private information, or how small this allocation is relative to their book. The tape tells us what happened mechanically — not whether you should follow.
• 🎓 For your first options trades, look for options with 30-60 days to expiration and strikes within 10% of the current price. That gives you time to be right without getting crushed by theta on every passing day.

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⚠️ Risk Factors — The Honest Picture

For this specific trade (the $350 BTO long call):

• ⏰ Total loss is the base case: If NBIS closes below $350.00 on July 10, every dollar of the $1.7M premium is gone. This is not a hedge — it is a pure speculation with a binary payoff profile. The most likely outcome is 100% loss.

• 📉 Theta destroys value rapidly: With only 11 DTE and the stock ≈35% below the strike, time decay accelerates. Even if NBIS rallies 10-15%, these options may still lose most of their value. Delta is very low at this distance from the strike.

• 🤝 Mechanism is lower-conviction: A facilitated auction block — where a known counterparty negotiated the other side — does not carry the same signal weight as someone aggressively paying up on lit markets to get filled. One desk bought; one desk sold. We don't know which side had the edge.

• 📅 No confirmed catalyst within 11 days: Q2 earnings are expected mid-to-late August 2026. There are no scheduled product launches, major data-center openings, or corporate events publicly announced for this window. The buyer may know something not yet public — or may not.

• 💸 Valuation leaves little margin for error: With a ≈$60-72B market cap on $3.0-3.4B of 2026 revenue guidance, Nebius is priced for flawless execution. The consensus analyst price target is ≈$244 — at or below current price — meaning the street's base case doesn't include a path to $350 in the near term.

• 🔔 NBIS pulled back from $300 despite positive news: The stock fell from ≈$300 to $235-$260 in June even as BofA raised its PT, the UK deal was announced, and Nasdaq-100 inclusion happened. This shows the name is heavily sentiment- and momentum-driven. A further de-rating would make $350 even more remote.

• 💰 Funding gap is a structural overhang: With $20-25B of 2026 capex and an estimated ≈$29B external-funding need by 2028, per Simply Wall St, continued debt and equity issuance is near-certain. Additional dilution can weigh on sentiment and cap upside.

What the tape CANNOT prove:

• The buyer's identity, broker, or institutional affiliation
• Whether this is a standalone speculative bet or part of a larger hedged structure
• Whether the buyer has non-public information about an upcoming announcement
• The sign of any pre-existing position (they may be long stock and using this as a cheap upside kicker, or short stock and hedging)

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🎯 The Bottom Line

Here's the deal: Someone spent $1.7M on a bet that NBIS makes a +35% move in 11 days — a position that needs the stock to go from ≈$259 to above $351.68 with no confirmed near-term catalyst. The mechanism was a facilitated auction block, not an aggressive market sweep. In dollar terms, $1.7M is a small bet from any desk that manages a book of any size.

What this tells us:

• 🎰 A desk is holding a speculative, low-probability lottery ticket on NBIS for July 10
• 🤝 The facilitated mechanism means this is a negotiated transaction — one party bought AND one party sold; we don't know which side was "right"
• ⏰ Q2 earnings are mid-to-late August — well outside this window — so the $350 target has no publicly-known catalyst support
• 📊 The ≈$46B hyperscaler backlog and ≈684% Q1 revenue growth are real — but they are already in the price and don't help a July 10 expiry

This is NOT a signal to buy NBIS stock or copy this options trade.

If you're a longer-term NBIS bull:

• ✅ The Meta ≈$27B deal and Microsoft ≈$17-19B contract represent real, contracted revenue
• ✅ NVIDIA's 8.3% strategic stake validates the infrastructure build
• ✅ Q1's $1.92B annualized cloud ARR on a path to $7-9B by year-end is a legitimate growth story
• 📅 Use instruments with duration that captures Q2 earnings — not 11-day deep-OTM calls

Mark your calendar:

• 📅 July 10, 2026 — Expiration of the $350 call (11 days away; check pre-market price for intrinsic value)
• 📅 ≈ Mid-to-Late August 2026 — Q2 2026 earnings (confirm date at Nebius investor events) — the next real catalyst
• 📅 Throughout 2H 2026 — Capacity ramp updates (target: 800-1,000 MW connected by year-end vs ≈170 MW at end-2025)
• 📅 Early 2027 — Meta Vera Rubin capacity deliveries begin; Microsoft Vineland revenues continue scaling

Final word: NBIS is a genuinely interesting AI-infrastructure story with real hyperscaler demand and a differentiated NVIDIA-financed build-out. But this specific $350 July 10 call is a low-probability lottery ticket — interesting as a signal to watch, not a trade to follow without understanding exactly what you're buying. The $1.7M headline sounds big; the probability math says the base case is total loss. Know the difference.

Disclaimer: Options trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. This analysis is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. The trade described above — buying deep out-of-the-money, short-dated calls — carries a high probability of total loss of premium. The buyer may have a complex hedging structure, different risk tolerance, or private information entirely unlike a retail trader's situation. Always conduct your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before trading options. NBIS is an extremely volatile stock with a 52-week range of $43.89 to $299.86; positions can lose significant value rapidly.

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About Nebius Group N.V.: Nebius Group is an Amsterdam-headquartered AI-cloud infrastructure company ("neocloud") that operates GPU-dense data centers for training and inference workloads, alongside Toloka (AI data labeling), TripleTen (tech bootcamps), and Avride (autonomous driving R&D). Listed on NASDAQ with a market cap of ≈$60-72 billion, the company was created from the 2024 restructuring of Yandex N.V. and has grown into one of the leading independent AI-cloud operators, backed by a ≈$46B+ hyperscaler backlog and NVIDIA as an 8.3% strategic investor.

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Last updated: 2026-06-30 — next-day OPRA OI resolved the open/close flag (see ✅ RESOLVED box).