Toast Draws 87% Call Money as Dark Pools Run Near 48% of Volume, McDonald's Leans 75% Calls: GTA Terminal Data for Restaurant Owners (November 13, 2026)

Toast makes the point-of-sale terminals, kitchen display screens and payment systems that thousands of independent restaurants run on, so its stock is a useful read on how investors see restaurant spending on technology. On Friday, Nov 13, GTA Terminal data from Global Traders Academy showed options traders putting most of their Toast money into calls while the shares rose, and McDonald's drew call-heavy flow at the same time. For restaurant owners weighing a new POS setup, a kitchen remodel or a second location, here is what the data says.

Toast: 87% of options money in calls

GTA Wire's Toast options report from Friday afternoon (3:40 PM ET, Nov 13) found the shares up 3.4% at $34.66 with $2.0M in premium traded: $1.7M in calls and $264K in puts. That puts 87% of the money in calls, a bullish tilt, with a put/call volume ratio of 0.56. Five option series traded more contracts than their open interest, a sign of new positions rather than old ones being closed.

• Biggest unusual trade: 487 call contracts expiring Jan 15, 2027, about $98K in premium against 22 contracts of open interest.

• Trend: uptrend, above the 50-day and 200-day averages, 8% below the 52-week high, RSI 66.

• Last price $34.66 vs. a 20-day average of $33.28 and a 50-day average of $31.87.

The put/call volume ratio of 0.56 means roughly one put contract traded for every two calls, and the puts that did trade were mostly cheap and short-dated, such as 1,131 contracts of the Nov 20 $31.50 put for about $6,786. The large dollars went into calls; the small hedges went into puts. The Toast quote page tracks the readings each session.

Dark pools: heavy but cooling

Toast also trades a lot away from the exchanges. Off-exchange volume ran at 47.8% of all volume on Nov 12 (3,074,948 shares), above the five-session average of 41%, after 45.8% on Nov 11 and 40.9% on Nov 10. The share count itself eased from 4,350,928 on Nov 10. A high share of volume in dark pools with fewer shares overall points to steady institutional positioning rather than a burst. Our guide on how to read a five-session dark pool trend explains why the direction across several days matters more than one print.

McDonald's adds call money too

The largest restaurant operator showed a similar lean. GTA Wire's McDonald's Friday call lean report (11:59 AM ET) counted $2.7M in premium, $2.0M in calls and $680K in puts, 75% calls with a put/call ratio of 0.35. The shares were up 0.2% at $274.30, above the 20-day ($262.63) and 50-day ($250.30) averages but below the 200-day, with an RSI of 71, in overbought territory.

What it means for restaurant owners

• Restaurant tech spending looks supported. Call money building in a POS and payments provider suggests traders expect restaurants to keep buying software and hardware. Vendors with confident outlooks tend to hold the line on price, so promotions on terminals and kitchen displays may be thinner. Compare bundles carefully.

• Bundle the tech with the kitchen. If you are replacing fryers, walk-ins or hoods next year, financing the POS and kitchen equipment in one package can keep monthly payments predictable.

• Overbought readings can cool. McDonald's RSI of 71 and Toast's run toward its high mean a pullback would not be unusual. Base your plans on your own sales, not on a stock chart.

A signal, not a guarantee

Options flow shows where money went in one session, not whether it was right, and some of it is hedging. Dark-pool volume shows size, not direction. These are signals, not guarantees, and nothing here is investment advice.

For more restaurant-sector data, see our look at Chipotle's flip to puts and McDonald's calls. The full options and dark pool readings behind this article come from globaltradersacademy.com.

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