New York, February 20, 2026, 05:10 EST — Premarket
- SMCI tacks on roughly 0.6% premarket, following Thursday’s 8.25% surge.
- Traders piled into call options at the $32 to $33.50 strikes before Friday’s expiration.
- Supermicro is “carefully looking” at Make-in-India manufacturing, a company executive said.
Super Micro Computer picked up another 0.6% before the bell Friday, trading at $32.36 after an 8.25% jump the previous session that left it finishing at $32.16. Around 42 million shares changed hands Thursday. With this latest uptick, the AI server company sits roughly halfway between its 52-week low of $27.60 and high of $62.43. (Investing)
Timing is key here. A significant batch of weekly options expires late Friday, which can trigger hedging activity and push stocks sharply either way, notably in tickers popular with quick-turn traders.
This drops as investors still hash out a more basic debate: whether Supermicro can ramp up its AI systems and avoid margins languishing in the low single digits. India’s now in the mix, though for now it’s mostly chatter.
Thursday’s options flow leaned bullish, as call contracts surged to roughly 114,000 and the put/call ratio slid under 0.16—well below the 20-day average near 0.38. (That ratio, which stacks up bearish puts against bullish calls, tends to drop when traders chase upside.) Most of the action clustered in the $32 to $33.50 range. Short-dated contracts expiring this Friday and the following Friday grabbed the bulk of the volume, according to TradingView. (TradingView)
Speaking at an AI summit in New Delhi, Supermicro’s Vik Malyala said the company is “carefully looking” at Make in India, weighing options to move ahead either directly or via partners. If Supermicro ramps up local production, he noted, more local hiring would follow. On display at the event: platforms built with Nvidia and AMD’s latest, including the “B300” and the liquid-cooled “MI350.” (ETTelecom.com)
CEO Charles Liang, according to a late Thursday regulatory filing, disclosed movements related to his spouse’s vested restricted stock units. The document noted that some shares were withheld at $30.11 to pay taxes, classifying the move as separate from a market trade. (SEC)
Still, that rebound in the stock is built on a pretty skinny margin outlook. Earlier this month, Supermicro bumped up its fiscal 2026 revenue target to at least $40 billion from the earlier $36 billion, fueled by bets on stronger demand for AI-optimized servers as data center budgets grow. CFO David Weigand pointed to “order strength remains strong” coming in from big customers. Over at Emarketer, analyst Gadjo Sevilla links Supermicro’s growth to its function as an “integrator” for cloud giants and AI clients. CEO Charles Liang, though, noted the company is facing short-term margin headwinds from things like tariffs, rising facility expenses, and spotty component supply. (Reuters)
Supermicro posted net sales of $12.7 billion for the quarter ending December 31, turning in a gross margin of 6.3% and net income at $401 million. Looking ahead, the company forecast at least $12.3 billion in net sales for the third quarter. “With our… expanding global manufacturing footprint, we are scaling rapidly,” CEO Liang said in the earnings statement. (Super Micro Computer)
The stock remains off roughly 46% from a year ago—a stark illustration of how fast sentiment can turn when margins slip or order flow looks shaky. Friday’s options expiration could bring some stability, but attention is already shifting to the next earnings release, scheduled for May 5 according to TradingView. (TradingView)
