Treasury leak? Suspicious options trade earns $2 million in 30 mins

Recent macroeconomic and trade developments have brought almost unprecedented volatility to the stock market. Moves that erase or add more than a trillion dollars aren’t a rare sight these days — and a recent suspicious options trade has successfully capitalized on one such move.

To be more precise, one enterprising trader placed a large bet that the S&P 500 would make a significant move to the upside in a matter of weeks, despite the generally bearish outlook of analysts and technical signals that suggest a correction. The trade involved call options with a strike price of 5800 and an expiry date of May 16. 

While it cannot be surmised that all of the volume came from a single source, the number of contracts with that strike price and expiration date being traded around 10:35 AM on April 22 skyrocketed to 11,718 from negligible levels earlier.

Was this suspicious options trade made with insider info?

So, why was this a suspicious options trade? Let’s keep in mind the generally bearish context in which it happened, above all.

Moreover, the bet came shortly after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made a statement at a private JPMorgan conference calling the current trade war between the United States and China unsustainable. 

This specific trade was placed after Bessent delivered market-moving news — but before the comments were leaked to Bloomberg and caused a market-wide rally, per political stock trade tracker Unusual Whales, who shared the findings in an April 22 X post.

After the Secretary’s comments became public, the S&P 500 surged to 5,287 from the previous day’s close of 5,157, amounting to an almost 2.52% rally.

At the time of the suspicious options trade, those calls were 11% out-of-the-money — per Unusual Whales, the enterprising trader behind the bet made approximately $2 million in the span of just 30 minutes following the Bloomberg leak.

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