Did Someone Know? Trader Front Runs $OPCH News for $1.2 MILLION in Profit

paid partnership with Interactive Brokers Hey all! Nicholas from the Unusual Whales team, comin’ back atcha with yet another example of… let’s just say, well-timed options activity; this time in Option Care Health, $OPCH, that showed up about three weeks before McKesson and private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice agreed to acquire the company for $5.8 billion. Before we get started, this issue is sponsored by Interactive Brokers! More on that in another issue; stay tuned! paid partnership with Interactive Brokers Back on September 16th, roughly 3,000 contracts of the January 15th, 2027 $25 call transacted ask-side for an average fill around $2.04 per contract while $OPCH traded right around $24 per share. So, barely out of the money, several months until expiration, and roughly $612,000 to $614,000 in premium tied up in the position. Those contracts carried over into open interest, followed by little to no activity in the contract at all over the following few weeks that would indicate the position had been closed, trimmed, rolled, flipped around, added, got chased, whatever. For the most part, it just sat there. On October 6th, McKesson and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice announced an agreement to acquire Option Care Health for $32.05 per share in cash, valuing the company at roughly $5.8 billion including debt. That represented about a 37% premium to where $OPCH had closed the previous session, so as you can probably imagine, shares reacted accordingly. Under the deal, CD&R will initially own 51% of Option Care Health while McKesson will own the remaining 49%, with McKesson also getting the ability to acquire CD&R’s stake later on. Assuming everything closes as expected, $OPCH will ultimately become a privately held company. Pretty big-boy headline for a stock that had been hanging out in the mid-$20s for half a year. And pretty damn convenient if you happened to be sitting on those $25 calls that had been open since September 16th. On October 6th, that position closed in full for around $6.20 per contract. At an average entry of roughly $2.04, the position cost about $612,000 to open and was worth around $1.86 million when it closed, good for approximately $1.248 million in profit on a 203.9% gain. I’m sure that 3 week long hold for a smooth $1.25 million in profit just happened to be the luckiest trade this person has ever taken. Puuuuure luck. Now, as always, the tape can tell us what traded, when it traded, where it traded, and whether those contracts stuck around in open interest. What it cannot tell us is who bought them, why they bought them, or whether or not they really had knew that a $5.8 billion acquisition was sitting around the corner. There are obviously plenty of reasons somebody could have been bullish on $OPCH before the deal was announced, and buying a slightly out-of-the-money call with four months until expiration is not, by itself, evidence that somebody knew anything. But uh… yeeeeeah… If you want to see how this stuff actually gets used when the market is moving, tune into WhaleWatch every Monday and Wednesday morning at 9:20am ET. We trade futures and options live using tools like Unusual Whales GEX Periscope and price action, break down options flow as it hits, and talk through what we’re seeing in real time. Wins, losses, bad entries, good reads, missed setups. You get the whole thing, not sensationalist, unrealistic gains every single day, somehow. And if you want the stranger side of the show, follow @WhaleWatch_UW on X, where we post clips, follow-ups, and the crazy weirdo stuff that goes on in between trades. If that sounds like your kind of morning, subscribe to the Unusual Whales YouTube channel and come hang out with us live :) 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. Unusual Whales is not responsible for any promotion. It does not verify the authenticity of the promotion or partnership, nor the merits of the individual promotion. Unusual Whales does not necessarily endorse any one promotion. Please do your own diligence and research before following any one promoted post. Do not consider a promotion of a post an advocation for the sponsor of the post. Do not invest because of any promotion. Do not follow any promotion unless you yourself think it worthwhile. Unusual Whales is not affiliated with any sponsor. Unusual Whales is being paid to promote the promotion. The sponsored segment itself is an ad, and not a reflection of Unusual Whales itself. Please check full terms for details.