Yesterday, something strange happened in the options market.
At exactly 2:20 p.m. Eastern, an $8 million surge in put options hit the Nasdaq 100 ETF.
These are the kinds of trades investors place when they think a stock or index is about to drop.
“Someone always knows,” posted The Kobeissi Letter, an industry-leading commentary on the global capital markets founded by Adam Kobeissi.
“This is unusual: At 2:20 PM, there was an $8 million spike in puts on the Nasdaq 100 ETF. 4 hours later, the US banned Nvidia, $NVDA, from selling their H20 chips to China. The Nasdaq is now down nearly -300 points since.”
Traders Online Are Skeptical
Social media users didn’t hold back. One asked, “Is there no way to see these orders in real time?” Other user posted, “Someone always knows. Yet to jail, no one goes.”
This isn’t the first time markets have seen suspiciously well-timed trades.
Just days earlier, Reuters reported that right before President Donald Trump announced a pause on tariffs via Truth Social, traders placed millions in options bets that the market would bounce.
When the S&P 500 jumped 9.5% following the post, the value of those trades soared. One position reportedly ballooned from $2.1 million to over $21 million.
That’s triggered calls from Democratic lawmakers for an investigation into possible insider trading.
U.S. House of Representatives Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said some members of Congress would be “aggressively demanding answers and transparency.”
But as experts pointed out, proving foul play in a sea of daily trades is tough. “There’s no way to know if that buyer at that moment just had lucky timing (or not),” said Henry Schwartz of Cboe Global Markets.
Nvidia Becomes a Target
The Nvidia news didn’t end with the export ban. President Trump wrote hours earlier on Truth Social, “All necessary permits will be expedited and quickly delivered to Nvidia.”
Then came the reversal: export restrictions on Nvidia’s H20 chip.
As The Kobeissi Letter put it: “President Trump 12 Hours Ago: ‘All necessary permits will be expedited and quickly delivered to Nvidia.’ President Trump Now: Export restrictions will be imposed on Nvidia’s H20 chip. Nvidia is now taking a $5.5 billion write down in Q1. Truly no company is safe from tariffs.”
Jim Cramer chimed in on April 16, saying Nvidia had become “a meme stock and it has to be cut back.” The Kobeissi Letter reposted the quote shortly after, drawing even more attention to it:
That comment sparked a fresh wave of hot takes on X. Some users mocked him, others defended Nvidia’s long-term value. One wrote, “Didn’t know meme stocks generated billions of revenue each quarter.”
Whether these market moves are a coincidence or something else, the feeling online is clear: Someone always seems to know before the rest of us do.