OUST Options +299%: NVIDIA Lidar Deal Sparks Massive Move
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Ouster Inc. (OUST) just delivered one of the cleanest catalyst-driven moves of the year. The lidar maker’s Rev8 digital sensor family was qualified on NVIDIA’s autonomous vehicle platform, and shares ripped from the high $20s into the high $40s over the following two weeks.
But here’s the part that matters for options traders: Pure Power Picks had already called the setup. On May 18, 2026, with OUST having pulled back to around $30, PPP alerted the OUST $40 CALLs expiring August 21, 2026 at $3.70. The analyst’s thesis was direct: “Price has fallen under $30 gives opportunity. Look for support / risk at $25. Anticipate reversal and price action to get back over $30… Maximum opportunity with time would be a breakout move into / over $41.65 – 50 before expiration.”
That contract has since traded as high as $14.76, a +299% max opportunity from the alert price. Every price target on the ticket up through the $41.65 max-opportunity floor has been tagged. Here’s the full breakdown.
“Price has fallen under $30 gives opportunity. Look for support / risk at $25. Anticipate reversal and price action to get back over $30. If this happens, target $33 – 34.5 and then last week’s high $36.05. Maximum opportunity with time would be a breakout move into / over $41.65 – 50 before expiration.”
T1 ✓
T2 ✓
last week’s high ✓
max opp low ✓
max opp high
PPP identified a high-conviction reversal setup on OUST near $30 with clearly defined risk at $25 and targets up to $50. The NVIDIA qualification had already sparked an initial pop, then the stock pulled back under $30, and that is exactly where PPP alerted the continuation. From there OUST ripped through every level on the ticket, and the $40 August calls expanded from $3.70 to a $14.76 high for a +299% max opportunity.
It Started on the Watchlist
The alert didn’t come out of nowhere. The day before it fired, OUST was already on the Pure Power Picks weekly watchlist, the educational study list where the team maps setups worth tracking before any alert goes out. On the May 18 list, the weekly chart was flagged for a solid full-body candle on heavy volume, with the levels mapped in advance: continuation over $36.05, a target into the $40 to $41 area, a squeeze over $41.65 into $50, and $30 then $25 marked as support to watch. That week’s watchlist was free and open to everyone, so you can read the original OUST writeup for yourself in the Stocks to Watch list for May 18, 2026.
Those are the same levels that showed up on the alert ticket the next day. That’s the PPP process in one picture: the watchlist does the homework on the weekly chart, and when the daily setup lines up, the alert fires with the plan already built. Preparation first. The watchlist is an educational study list, not a buy list, and being on it is no guarantee that an alert or a move follows.
What Was the PPP Alert Thesis?
The OUST setup was a textbook technical reversal play with a clear catalyst already in the tape. Going into May 18, OUST had pulled back under $30, a level that had previously acted as a pivot. The PPP analyst flagged this as the optimal alert zone: $25 to $30.
Risk was defined the same way it always is on a PPP alert. The void level was $25: a daily close beneath that price would invalidate the thesis entirely. No guessing, no hoping. If the floor broke, the thesis was off.
The upside roadmap was laid out in tiers. The breakout trigger sat at $30, and once reclaimed, the analyst expected price action to push toward $33 to $34.50, then the prior week’s high at $36.05. Each level was a logical resistance checkpoint.
Then came the kicker: the analyst explicitly called out a “maximum opportunity” scenario of a breakout into and over $41.65 to $50 before the August 21 expiration. That’s a critical piece of an options thesis: giving the idea enough runway via expiration choice to allow the bigger move to develop. (For more on this, see our guide on picking the right strike price.)
This is what separates a tip from a thesis. PPP didn’t just say “buy OUST calls.” It defined the alert zone, the trigger, the void, and a layered target ladder, the kind of structured plan we walk through in our how our trade alerts work breakdown.
This Is Exactly What Members Got
None of this was pieced together after the move. When the OUST alert fired on May 18, this is what members received, in full: the thesis, the contract, the opportunity-goal tiers, six price targets, the support level, and the invalidation line. The entire plan in one place, in plain language.
And it doesn’t just sit in a dashboard waiting to be checked. Alerts can land by text message the moment they fire, right alongside the dashboard and Discord, so they are genuinely hard to miss. You also choose what reaches you: you are not opted into everything by default, so the only alerts hitting your phone are the ones you actually want.
What News Drove the Move?
The catalyst actually pre-dated the alert, and that timing is the whole point. Around May 12 to 13, Ouster announced that its Rev8 OS digital lidar sensor family had been qualified on NVIDIA’s open-reference platform (DRIVE Hyperion and Jetson) for autonomous vehicles. OUST spiked roughly 26% to $34.17 on the news.
This wasn’t a press release fluff piece. NVIDIA’s DRIVE platform is the reference architecture that automakers and robotaxi developers use to build autonomous systems. Being qualified on Hyperion places Ouster’s sensors directly into the supply-chain consideration for Tier-1 OEMs and the broader Physical AI ecosystem.
Then the stock did what post-catalyst names so often do: it gave some back. By May 18, OUST had faded from the mid-$30s back under $30. That pullback is exactly where Pure Power Picks alerted, not chasing the initial spike but anticipating a reclaim of $30 and a continuation toward the $41.65 to $50 zone. The thesis read the cool-off as opportunity, not exhaustion.
The follow-through came fast. OUST reclaimed $30 on May 21, pushed to $37 by May 22, and tagged a high of $47.32 on May 29, blowing through the analyst’s $41.65 max-opportunity floor and putting the $50 upper bound in play. That’s the same emerging-tech tailwind we’ve discussed in our robotics alert case study and our breakdown of emerging tech sector plays.
It also reinforces why thesis-driven options buyers wait for a defined setup rather than buying the headline. According to the Corporate Finance Institute’s breakdown of implied volatility, IV is driven heavily by option demand, which tends to surge around catalysts. That’s why chasing a post-news spike often means paying a steep volatility premium, and PPP’s alert on the pullback offered a far better location than buying the May 13 pop.
How Did the Options React?
From $3.70 alerted to a $14.76 high, the $40 August 21 calls did exactly what a well-structured out-of-the-money call is built to do on a directional move.
The milestone timeline tells the story:
- May 18 (alert day): Alerted at $3.70 with OUST near $30; the contract closed the session at $4.42.
- May 19: The contract dipped to a low of $3.00 (about -19%) as OUST pulled back to $27.58, still holding above the $25 void.
- May 21: $6.20 as OUST reclaimed and held above $30 (the +50% threshold tagged).
- May 22: $7.10 close, intraday high $7.93, as the contract crossed +100%.
- May 26: $11.80 close, intraday high $13.27, as OUST pushed past the $41.65 max-opportunity floor.
- May 27: $13.25 close, intraday high $13.80.
- May 29: New high of $14.76, a +299% max opportunity, with OUST tagging $47.32.
As of midday May 29 the contract is trading near $14.60, a +295% current move, after tagging a $14.76 high for a +299% max opportunity, with the August 21 expiration still nearly three months out.
The Greeks now reflect the contract’s transformation. Delta is 0.72: what was an out-of-the-money idea at $30 underlying is now in-the-money with OUST in the high $40s and tracking the stock far more closely. IV sits at 131.0%, reflecting the explosive realized volatility and elevated expectations into expiration.
Strike selection mattered. The $40 strike sat aggressively above spot at alert time, which is precisely why $3.70 could expand into double digits. And the August expiration gave the thesis roughly three months of runway, enough time for the “maximum opportunity” scenario to develop without theta (currently -0.062) eroding the contract. Once a contract pushes in-the-money like this, theta decay slows materially relative to the intrinsic value it has built up.
What About the Drawdown? Where a Stop Comes In
No alert moves in a straight line, and this one didn’t either. The day after the alert, on May 19, the contract dipped to a low of $3.00, a drawdown of roughly 19% from the $3.70 alert price. OUST pulled back with it, trading as low as $27.58 intraday. Showing that dip matters as much as showing the run.
This is where the chart and the thesis earn their keep. The analyst defined risk at the $25 void: a daily close below that level would invalidate the idea. OUST dipped to $27.58 but closed near $29.70 and never threatened the $25 line. A trader using the chart for a technical stop, placing it on a daily close below the $25 structure rather than on an arbitrary percentage, would have stayed with the idea through the shakeout. A tight stop set just under the alert price would have been triggered by that ordinary first-day pullback and closed the idea out right before it developed.
That tension is the whole game with long calls. Out-of-the-money options are volatile by design: a 15 to 20% swing in the premium can happen on a routine day in the underlying, so a stop tied to the option’s price needs real room or it gets shaken out by noise. A common approach is to anchor risk to the underlying’s technical level instead (the $25 void here) and size the idea so a full loss to that level is something you can absorb. Decide those risk parameters before you act: how much you are willing to lose on a single idea, whether you use a hard stop or a mental line on the chart, and the simple fact that a long call can expire worthless.
None of this is a recommendation to buy, hold, or set any particular stop. It is an example of how a defined void level and a chart-based plan work together so a normal drawdown doesn’t shake you out of a still-valid idea. For more, see our guide on managing risk on options trades.
What Can Traders Learn?
Three principles stand out from this alert:
1. Don’t chase the spike, wait for the setup. The NVIDIA news had already popped OUST before the alert. Instead of buying the May 13 gap, PPP waited for the pullback under $30 and alerted the continuation with defined risk. Chasing a post-catalyst spike usually means paying inflated IV and worse strike pricing. This is the same playbook behind our partnership-driven options alert on HIMS.
2. Define your void level before you act. The $25 void wasn’t a suggestion, it was the line that invalidates the entire thesis. As the drawdown above showed, knowing where you’re wrong, and giving the idea room to that level, is non-negotiable in options.
3. Layered targets map the whole move. A ladder from $33 to $50 means every level is defined in advance instead of guessing the top in the moment. See taking profits and setting stops for the full framework.
How OUST Stacks Up Against Recent Alerts
One alert in isolation doesn’t tell you much. The honest way to read any alert service is across a batch: the big movers and the ones that didn’t work. Here’s a transparent scorecard of recent PPP alerts. OUST sits alongside standout moves like QCOM, LUNR, and HPQ, but we’ve also included three that went the wrong way. Every number is a real alert from the last several weeks, and “max opportunity” always means the peak move from the alert price, not a typical or guaranteed outcome.
That discipline, defined risk, layered targets, and full transparency on the misses, is the whole point. No service is right every time, and any track record that only shows its winners should raise an eyebrow.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does “max opportunity” mean on a PPP alert?
Max opportunity refers to the peak percentage move from the alerted price to the highest price the contract has traded since the alert fired. For OUST $40 calls, that’s $3.70 to a $14.76 high, a +299% peak move. It is a historical statistic from the alert record, not a guaranteed or replicable outcome for any individual trader.
Why did PPP choose the $40 strike instead of an at-the-money call?
With OUST near $30 at alert time, the $40 strike was out-of-the-money, which kept the cost low ($3.70) and offered substantial leverage if the thesis played out. Because the thesis explicitly targeted a breakout toward $41.65 to $50, the $40 strike was set to flip in-the-money exactly when the upside scenario triggered.
What does the 131% IV tell us right now?
An implied volatility of 131.0% indicates the options market is pricing in significant continued movement. This is common after a major catalyst. High IV inflates premiums on both sides, which is why some traders rotate out of pure long calls after a major move and into structured spreads.
Where can I learn how to actually use options alerts?
Start with our beginner-friendly guide on how to use options trading alerts, then check out our alert case study breakdown and another big alert on UNP for real-world examples of thesis execution.
Every PPP alert comes with a detailed thesis, price targets, support/resistance levels, and a void level: the full roadmap, not just a ticker.
Disclaimer: Pure Power Picks is not a licensed financial advisor. All content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. Options trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past alert performance does not guarantee future results.
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The PPP Team brings decades of combined experience from some of the most well-known companies in the trading industry. Founded in 2020, Pure Power Picks delivers options trading education, platform reviews, and trade alerts to help everyday traders develop real skills. Our content is strictly educational.