PUT and CALL Positions in 13F Filings

PUT and CALL positions in 13F filings confuse many investors encountering them for the first time. When you pull up a fund's 13F and see a stock listed with a "PUT" or "CALL" designation instead of the usual "SH" for shares, you are looking at an options position — and interpreting it correctly requires understanding both what the 13F reveals and what it conceals.

Options positions appear in 13F filings because listed equity options are classified as Section 13(f) securities. Any institutional manager holding put or call options on U.S.-listed stocks must report those positions alongside their stock holdings. This creates a partial window into the derivatives activity of hedge funds and other institutions, but the window is cloudy — missing critical details that determine the position's true meaning.

How Options Appear in 13F Filings

Every holding in a 13F filing includes an investment discretion type field that identifies the nature of the position. The three most common values are:

• SH (Shares) — Common stock, preferred stock, or ETF shares. This is the standard long equity position most people think of when reading 13F data.
• CALL — Call option contracts. The reported share count represents the number of underlying shares covered by the options (each contract typically covers 100 shares).
• PUT — Put option contracts. Same reporting convention — the share count reflects underlying shares, not the number of contracts.

A fund might hold three separate line items for the same stock:

| Company | Type | Shares | Value ($000) | |---------|------|--------|-------------| | Apple Inc | SH | 5,000,000 | 850,000 | | Apple Inc | CALL | 2,000,000 | 95,000 | | Apple Inc | PUT | 1,000,000 | 30,000 |

This fund holds 5 million shares of Apple outright, call options covering 2 million underlying shares, and put options covering 1 million underlying shares. But what does this actually mean? That depends on details the 13F does not provide.

What 13F Filings Tell You About Options — and What They Don't

What You Can See

• The underlying security — which stock the options are on
• Whether they are puts or calls — the directional lean
• The number of underlying shares — the notional size of the position
• The market value — what the options were worth on the last day of the quarter

What You Cannot See

• Strike price — Is the put struck at $100 or $200? This completely changes the position's meaning and risk.
• Expiration date — Does the option expire next month or in two years? Short-dated options are tactical; long-dated LEAPS are strategic.
• Whether the position is long or short — This is the most critical missing piece. The 13F does not distinguish between owning (buying) options and writing (selling) them. A fund reporting a PUT position might have bought puts (bearish) or sold puts (bullish — they are accepting obligation to buy stock if assigned).
• Multi-leg strategies — Options are often used in combinations: spreads, straddles, collars, butterflies. The 13F shows individual legs without indicating how they connect.

These limitations mean that options positions in 13F filings must be interpreted carefully and, in many cases, cannot be definitively interpreted at all.

Interpreting PUT Positions in 13F Filings

When you see a PUT position on a 13F, several possible explanations exist. The correct interpretation depends on context from the fund's overall portfolio and investment strategy.

Scenario 1: Bearish Directional Bet

The fund bought put options as a bet that the stock will decline. This is the most straightforward interpretation and often the correct one for hedge funds known for short-side activity.

If a fund like Scion Asset Management (Michael Burry's firm) reports a large PUT position with no corresponding shares in the same stock, a bearish bet is the most likely explanation. The fund is paying a premium for the right to profit if the stock falls below the strike price.

Scenario 2: Portfolio Hedge

A fund holding a large long stock position might buy puts on the same stock as insurance. The PUT position protects against downside while allowing the fund to maintain upside exposure through the shares.

Look for this pattern: a fund holding both SH and PUT positions in the same stock. The puts likely serve as a hedge against the stock position rather than a standalone bearish bet.

Scenario 3: Short Put (Bullish)

A fund might have sold (written) put options, which is actually a bullish strategy. By selling puts, the fund collects premium and agrees to buy the stock if it falls to the strike price. This is a common approach used by value investors who want to be paid while waiting for a stock to reach their target entry price.

Because the 13F does not indicate whether the fund is long or short the put, this interpretation is impossible to confirm from the filing alone. However, certain clues help: if the reported market value is relatively small compared to the notional exposure, the options may be deep out-of-the-money puts that were sold. If the value is large relative to the notional, they are more likely bought puts with intrinsic value.

Scenario 4: Complex Strategy Component

Puts can be one leg of a multi-leg options strategy — a collar (long stock + long put + short call), a put spread (long one put + short another), or a risk reversal. In these cases, interpreting the put position in isolation is misleading.

Interpreting CALL Positions in 13F Filings

CALL positions are generally simpler to interpret than puts, but similar ambiguities exist.

Scenario 1: Leveraged Bullish Bet

The fund bought call options to gain bullish exposure to a stock with leverage. A $10 million investment in calls can provide exposure equivalent to $50 million or more in stock, depending on the strike and expiration. This is common among funds that want concentrated upside without deploying the full capital required for a stock position.

Scenario 2: Covered Call Writing

A fund holding shares and reporting a CALL position might be writing (selling) covered calls against its stock position. This generates income from the option premium but caps upside. Covered call writing is a conservative strategy — the opposite of the leveraged speculation most people associate with options.

Look for funds holding both SH and CALL positions in the same stock. If the CALL share count is similar to or smaller than the SH share count, covered call writing is plausible.

Scenario 3: LEAP Calls as Stock Substitute

Some funds use long-dated call options (LEAPS) as a capital-efficient substitute for stock ownership. A two-year call option provides most of the upside of stock ownership at a fraction of the capital outlay. Funds using this approach are bullish but capital-constrained — or they prefer the defined-risk profile of options over direct stock ownership.

Scenario 4: Merger Arbitrage

In merger situations, funds sometimes use call options to gain exposure to the target company's stock. The defined-risk nature of options is attractive in merger arbitrage because if the deal breaks, the maximum loss is the option premium — unlike a stock position, which can decline significantly.

How HedgeTrace Handles PUT and CALL Positions in 13F Data

HedgeTrace displays options positions separately from stock positions, clearly labeling each holding as SH, CALL, or PUT. This labeling is essential because combining options and stock positions into a single line item would obscure the fund's actual positioning.

On HedgeTrace fund pages, you can see:

• All stock positions (SH) listed with their share counts and values
• All CALL positions listed separately, showing underlying share counts and values
• All PUT positions listed separately, with the same detail
• Quarter-over-quarter changes for each position type independently

This separation allows you to identify patterns like new PUT positions (potential bearish bets), growing CALL positions (increasing bullish leverage), and the relationship between options and stock holdings in the same security.

Practical Tips for Analyzing PUT and CALL Positions in 13F Filings

Don't Assume Direction

The most common mistake is assuming a PUT position is bearish and a CALL position is bullish. While these are the default interpretations, the opposite can be true if the fund is writing rather than buying options. Without strike and expiration data, maintain intellectual humility about what options positions actually represent.

Consider Fund Strategy

The fund's known investment strategy provides context. A long-short equity fund reporting PUT positions is more likely making bearish bets than hedging. A long-only value fund reporting PUT positions is more likely hedging or writing cash-secured puts. Check the fund's strategy on the HedgeTrace fund page to inform your interpretation.

Watch for New Options Positions

New PUT or CALL positions that did not exist in the prior quarter are more informative than ongoing positions that are simply adjusted. A fund initiating a large PUT position in a stock it does not own as shares is a strong signal of bearish conviction.

Track these changes using HedgeTrace quarter-over-quarter analysis.

Compare Value to Notional Exposure

The reported market value of an options position divided by the notional exposure (shares times stock price) gives you a rough sense of the options' characteristics. A high ratio suggests in-the-money options or long-dated options. A low ratio suggests out-of-the-money or near-expiration options.

Cross-Reference Multiple Funds

If multiple unrelated funds all initiate PUT positions in the same stock in the same quarter, the signal strengthens regardless of the individual ambiguities. Convergence across multiple 13F filers reduces the likelihood that the positions are hedges or strategy components and increases the likelihood of directional conviction.

Use the HedgeTrace stock page to see all institutional holders, including those with options positions, and look for patterns in PUT or CALL activity across the holder base.

PUT and CALL Positions: A Valuable but Incomplete Signal

PUT and CALL positions in 13F filings add a dimension to institutional analysis that pure stock holdings cannot provide. They reveal which funds are using derivatives, which names are attracting options-based positioning, and — with careful interpretation — the directional lean of sophisticated institutional investors.

But options positions in 13F data are inherently incomplete. The missing strike, expiration, and long/short information means that definitive conclusions are often impossible. Treat options data as one input among many, combine it with stock position analysis, institutional accumulation trends, and your own fundamental research, and you will extract the maximum value from this unique data source.

For a broader understanding of what 13F filings do and do not reveal, see our guides on how to read 13F filings and 13F filing limitations. And for a deep dive into bearish positioning using short sales rather than options, see our guide on short selling explained.