Big Tech Meets Zero-Day Options for Trading Frenzy Every Friday

An end-of-week feeding frenzy in options of the world’s biggest companies has emerged as two of the hottest trends on Wall Street collide.

Rampant demand for Big Tech exposure is combining with the boom in fast-expiring options to fuel an explosion in bullish bets in the first few minutes of Friday trading. That’s the day that weekly contracts on individual stocks like Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. expire, effectively turning them into the zero-day options that have become a trader obsession.

Total call volume of the seven most-valuable tech firms — also including Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Nvidia Corp., Meta ...