Flow Review, June 4, 2025; Traders Front run $APLD news with CoreWeave
Hey all,
Nicholas from the Unusual Whales team, here! We’re going to spend one issue every week walking you through some trades of the week for free to help your trading!
In this issue, we’re looking at yet another suspiciously well-timed trade — a concentrated flurry of $APLD call options that hit the tape just days before a $7 billion deal announcement involving CoreWeave, an NVIDIA-backed AI infrastructure heavyweight.
The trade came in on slightly over 5,000 contracts of the $10 strike call expiring July 18, 2025 — all bought at the ask, with an average fill of $0.37 per contract. The total premium for the transaction totaled roughly $191,000.

The trade hit the tape on Friday, May 30th, just an hour before close and a market day before the deal became public. At the time of the trade, APLD was hovering around $6.77 per share, and the $10C was decidedly out of the money — 47% OTM, to be exact — with no unusual news or activity pushing the stock in either direction. But that calm didn’t last long.
The Deal That Pushed the Trade
Come Monday morning, June 2nd, Applied Digital dropped a bombshell: a 15-year, $7 billion agreement with CoreWeave for 250 megawatts of power at its Ellendale data center campus in North Dakota. The deal includes the option for CoreWeave to scale up to 400 MW — putting this agreement in the running as one of the largest AI infrastructure deals in recent months.
CoreWeave, for context, is an NVIDIA-backed AI cloud services provider that’s been aggressively scaling data center deployments. This wasn’t just any partnership — this was a long-term revenue engine being plugged directly into APLD's infrastructure.
The market reaction was immediate.
Stock Performance: APLD Lights Up
By Monday afternoon, APLD ripped through resistance like tissue paper, jumping over 36% intraday and closing up roughly 48% by end of day. The momentum bled into Tuesday, June 3rd, where the stock extended gains and hit a high of $11.82, before finally topping out on June 4th at over $13 — a staggering move from pre-news levels.

For a small-cap stock, that kind of price action is headline-worthy on its own. But when you layer in the perfectly timed options trade from the Friday prior — well, it starts to feel more than just “unusual.”
Let’s Talk About Those $10 Calls
The Friday, May 30th transaction of roughly 5,000 contracts at $0.37 didn’t go unnoticed. The flow came in at the ask, making the likelihood of buying to open high.
Then, on Monday, June 2nd, after the news hit, the $10C exploded, printing a high of $2.15 per contract before closing slightly lower.
That day, 11.7k contracts traded — more than double the original size. The next morning, open interest had dropped by 1,800 contracts, suggesting that at least part of the original position was exited at around $1.64 per contract.

Let’s break that down:
Entry at $0.37 → Exit at $1.64 = 343% gain
On ~$191,000 of premium, that’s a ~$650,000 profit assuming the whole position closed
But the story doesn’t end there.
What If They Held the Position?
While the size and timing make it more likely the trade closed, it is possible a lot of that volume was intraday, and the position itself remained open. By June 4th, the $10 calls had spiked even further, hitting a high of $3.90 per contract — a 954% move from the original $0.37 entry. We can’t say for certain how much of the original position remained, but the sizing suggests the trader possibly closer that whole position there at $1.64.
If even half the original 5,000 contract order held to $3.90, we’re talking about $975,000 in gains on just $95k in premium. If the entire position stayed open (a BIG if, but still), the total return would be a jaw-dropping $1.76 million in profits — in just three trading days.
Flow Before the News… Again
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen suspiciously well-timed options activity precede a headline like this. Just last week, we broke down a similar move in Navitas Semiconductor ($NVTS), where unusual call volume preceded a major NVIDIA partnership announcement — and the traders walked away with gains over 800% in a matter of hours. Then of course, the numerous times traders front ran announcements made by Donald Trump that really moved the markets.
What we’re seeing with APLD feels shockingly similar. High-premium, short-dated OTM call trades — right before major news breaks — seems to once again be appearing more and more frequently. In fact, a look at APLD’s flow history shows significant open interest on numerous contracts over the last several weeks.

Whoever was behind this trade positioned aggressively, took size, and timed it to near perfection — with the stock moving more than 50% in just days and the contract gaining as much as 954%.
At best, it’s an incredible instance of anticipating value in under-the-radar names ahead of AI infrastructure announcements. At worst? Maybe someone does always know…
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NOTE: This post is not financial advice. The stock market is risky, and any trade or investment is expected to have some, or total, loss. Please do research before any trade. Do not use this information for investment decisions. Check terms on site for full terms. Agree to terms before considering this information.