More Unusual Trading Before Trump's China tariff Pause, IT HAPPENED AGAIN. Flow Review 5/12/2025
In this issue, we’re going to cover yet another example of unusually timed trades in the S&P 500, $SPY. Just days before news, massive volume on several out-of-the-money contracts hit the tape. Once again riding on the coattails of “buy now” rhetoric by the President, these trades certainly raised some eyebrows.
To start us off here, you may recall the article we wrote and the video we published last month, covering suspiciously timed trades after Trump’s “Great time to buy” Truth Social post, and the subsequent gains enjoyed by the traders. Now, exactly one month later, a nearly identical situation transpired.
President Trump made yet another bold statement like this, during a public appearance on Thursday, May 8th—telling people flat out: “You better go out and buy stock now.” He didn’t mince words. According to him, the U.S. economy is about to take off “like a rocket ship that only goes up.” If that kind of language sounds familiar, it's because we've heard similar calls from him before—and in the past, they’ve lined up with some pretty major market moves.
Fast forward to the weekend, and like clockwork, something big hits. Just before 2 PM on Sunday May 11th, the White House dropped a statement from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, saying that there had been “substantial progress” in the ongoing U.S.–China trade negotiations.
That’s the kind of news the market loves, especially given how anxiously investors in the markets have been awaiting news on US-China negotiations.
But here’s the part where our eyebrows raised: some traders seemed ready for it—almost too ready.
On Friday, May 9th, members of the Unusual Whales Discord community noticed significant options activity in SPY. Early in the day, there was notable volume in the SPY 573 strike calls expiring the following Monday, May 12th. Then, just before the market closed, three additional contracts started seeing large flows: SPY 580 strike calls expiring on the 12th, 13th, and 14th.
The timing and concentration of this flow suggested someone was anticipating a move or announcement that could push the market higher over the weekend.
And they were right.
By Monday, May 12th—the day we created and published the video tracking these positions—those trades had already played out in astounding ways, with some contracts remaining open, and some showing fairly clear signs of exit. (You can watch the YouTube breakdown of these unusual trades here:
The SPY $573 calls were still open into the trading day on Monday the 12th; day of expiration for the contracts. They were entered at an average of $0.89 per contract with an OI carry-over close to 20,000. On Monday, these hit a high of $10.51, a gain of 1,081%. As you see below; the contract didn’t experience very much volume compared to the open interest on Monday. It seems somewhat likely these contracts, now 0DTE and in the money, were exercised at expiry.
The SPY $580 calls across all expirations told a similar story with much less conjecture.
Pictured below, we see the $580C expiring on May 12th; a clean and clear entry at $0.21. On Monday, we see a series of bid-side transactions in similar enough size to the initial entry that we can safely speculate on an exit. The exit orders hit the tape at an average price of $1.48; a 605% gain from point of entry.
Both the $580C for 5/13 and those for 5/14 reflected this same pattern. Entry on Friday for cheap, exit on Monday for crazy profits. Traders entered the 5/13 contracts at around $0.41, and closed them out for an average fill of $2.61 on Monday; a 534% gain. The 5/14 contracts? Same deal. Entries at $0.60 on Friday, exits as high as $3.25 on Monday for 442% in profit.
Eyebrow raising trades, indeed. And the Unusual Whales Discord community caught ALL of these unusual trades LIVE, in real time, in the #flow-discussions channel of the Unusual Whales Discord. You can learn how to sign up to Unusual Whales and link your Discord account in this article.
So, what do you think about these trades? Unusual? Or a sign that the “Trump Buy Signal” is a new meta for trading?
Thanks as always for reading! You can find articles like this and MANY others about Options and the Unusual Whales Platform on the new Information Hub!!