Oil Insider or Trump Mindreader? Unusual Oil Flow Before Trump’s Speech

Hey all! Nicholas from the Unusual Whales team, here! Today, we’re going to talk about the market reaction to Trump’s address on Iran last night. We’re also going to focus on some suspicious options flow in oil names discussed on the Unusual Whales trading show WhaleWatch yesterday morning. Did someone know what Trump would say? Last night the market got the exact opposite of what it had spent the previous session hoping for. Going into Trump’s address on Iran, there was at least some belief that he might offer a real off-ramp, or at least some kind of clarity to the timeline to wind this whole Iran war situation down a bit. Instead, Trump stated that the U.S. would hit Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks, while offering no real clarity on when the Strait of Hormuz might reopen. That was all crude needed to hear. The result was immediate. Brent instantly jumped 7.9% to $109.12, while WTI absolutely ripped 12.5% to $112.60, putting U.S. crude on pace for its biggest absolute one-day price increase since 2020. /CL futures tapped a high of $113.97 before any meaningful pullback at all. Equity futures took that about as well as you’d expect. Overnight, U.S. stock futures pointed to a nasty open, with S&P 500 futures down about 1.7% and Nasdaq futures down about 2.2% as traders backed away from risk and repriced the inflation mess that comes with oil doing its best impression of the Superman takeoff shot. Traders didn’t necessarily react to the fact that Trump spoke, rather this seems more a reaction to what he didn’t offer: a clear path toward ceasefire. There was no diplomatic language worth latching onto, and no serious roadmap for getting oil flowing normally again. After two days of markets teetering on the possibility that maybe this thing was heading toward some kind of controlled descent, last night’s speech basically punted that narrative off a cliff. And I have some suspicions that someone had a pretty damn good idea of what was going to be said long before Trump took the podium. Before we get to the unusual options flow in oil tickers, this article is sponsored by Incogni! Keep Your SSN Off The Dark Web Every day, data brokers profit from your sensitive info—phone number, DOB, SSN—selling it to the highest bidder. What happens then? Best case: companies target you with ads. Worst case: scammers and identity thieves breach those brokers, leaving your data vulnerable or on the dark web. It’s time you check out Incogni. It scrubs your personal data from the web, confronting the world’s data brokers on your behalf. And unlike other services, Incogni helps remove your sensitive information from all broker types, including those tricky People Search Sites. Help protect yourself from identity theft, spam calls, and health insurers raising your rates. Plus, just for Unusual Whale readers: Get 58% off Incogni using code WHALES During the Unusual Whales morning show, Anthony and I noted unusual options activity in several oil names. First off, while the entire oil sector was down considerably on the day, $XOM $172.5 calls expiring on April 17th hit the tape with size. Over 1,100 contracts transacted at the ask for an average fill of $1.31 per contract. Come market open, this contract hit a high of $3.15 for an overnight gain of over 140%. Right in tandem with the $XOM positioning, we also caught some spice on the $CVX $202.5 calls for 4/10/2026. Once again, around 1,100 contracts hit the tape at the ask for an average fill of $2.34 per contract. At open, they hit a high of $6.00 even, for an overnight gain of 156%. And ultimately, these contracts are just a few that we saw lighting up the tape, with $CVX leading the charge of ask-side call volume. As the trading day has progressed through today’s session, the move has largely unwound as equities rallied the gap down, and oil saw a solid pullback from those reactionary highs; but only time, and geopolitics, will tell just where the markets are headed. You can check out the full WhaleWatch episode where we caught this unusual activity in real time, and be sure to tune into our show every Monday and Wednesday morning at market open to learn more about how we use Unusual Whales tools to trade! Thank you as always for reading! REMEMBER!! You can find articles like this and MANY others about Options and the Unusual Whales Platform on the new Information Hub!! NOTE: This post is not financial advice. 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