Unusual Options Activity in JMIA

Today, April 20, 2022, among the underlying components of the NYSE, we saw unusual or noteworthy options trading volume and activity in JMIA 8 C 4/22/2022:

This was one with a volume of 3047 with OI going down from yesterday.
Before the stock rallied 8% from lows, these large $8 contracts came in.
What’s worse, it looks like the trader was front loading news.
The $JMIA news came around 1:48 pm EST.
At 1:32 largest $JMIA trades happened (1st img)
The trader targeted $JMIA $8, two days to expire. $JMIA rallies 8% off lows, trader +40%.
In 2nd image can see exact moment trader frontloaded the news. Who knew?

Seen above are the noteworthy options in ESSC from the Unusual Whales flow.

You can see for each bearish position, the volume was greater than open interest (thus the exclamation mark)

Additionally, these orders were seen in the new Unusual Whales Hottest Chains tool as well as flow dashboard momentarily, followed by heavy bearish flows.

Numerous people were selling JMIA calls on the bump.

As mentioned, these orders were marked as a “sweep”. An options sweep (or sweep-to-fill) occurs when a broker splits an order into many parts in order to get the best possible pricings currently offered on the market.

These orders can often be filled across multiple exchanges and the broker will continue to fill the order lot by lot, always for the best possible price, until the order is completely filled.

Sweeps might stand out because they imply some entity (or entities) wanted to enter specific options contracts regardless of their price, as they were focused only on having their entire bulk order filled as quickly as possible. While the magnitude of sweeps might stand out, each one must be investigated thoroughly to understand what the sentiment of a trader is as compared to the overall flow.

Seen above is the aforementioned chain’s historical volume, in red, and open interest, in blue, as bar charts behind the requisite bid and ask, in a light blue and darker shade, respectively.

To view more information about JMIA’s daily flow breakdown, click here to visit unusualwhales.com.