Options Analysis: Argentina Banking Sector Unusual Trades

By Anton Rotach, Quant at OptionMetrics

Argentina has spent years battling inflation, a shaky currency, and mounting debt. These troubles have weighed on local businesses and dragged down U.S.–listed shares (of American Depository Receipts [ADRs]) of Argentine companies.

 

Against this backdrop, Grupo Financiero Galicia (ticker: GGAL [https://www.barchart.com/stocks/quotes/GGAL]) stands out as a potential bellwether for Argentina’s banking sector. As one of the nation’s largest private financial groups, GGAL’s fortunes are closely tied to the health of Argentina’s economy and currency. Its U.S.-traded shares have reflected that connection, often moving sharply on any hint of change in the country’s policy direction.

That’s why when U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent announced on Monday, September 22nd that the US “stands ready” to support the Argentine economy, GGAL soared 20% from a day before. 

 

Let’s investigate if there were any unusual trades in the options market ahead of this announcement. Leveraging OptionMetrics’ IvyDB Signed Volume, a dataset that classifies trades as either buyer or seller-initiated based on the trade price with respect to the bid-ask spread, we can track the historical volume of option contracts that occurred closer to the ask price, which is normally an indication of strong buying pressure and the need for an immediate execution.  We can proxy these as option “purchases” by end users.

 

 

The graph above sums these option purchases into four groups: out-of-the-money (OTM) call options, OTM put options, in-the-money (ITM) call options, and ITM put options. Purchases across these four groups provide different sentiments: buying call options is obviously bullish, and if they are OTM it is even more so as these are more lottery style options. The volume on GGAL options stayed relatively consistent for most of 2025, until the huge spike on Friday September 19th where the OTM call purchase volume spiked to 34,711 contracts, while all other groups remained relatively steady. This OTM call bucket often provides the most bullish sentiment when it comes to increased volume.

 

Diving deeper into the option chain, we can see that this spike can be attributed to two options, the $34 and $40 strike calls expiring on November 21st. The purchases of these two options adds up to 32,469, which accounts for more than 90% of the OTM call purchases on this day.  These are deep out-of-the-money options, as the underlying at the time of the purchase was $27. The graph below shows the volume of these two options, and how they break down between purchases and sales.

 

 

 

The chart shows that the volume on these two options split into purchases and sales, and an overwhelming majority of the total volume were purchases. These two options, $34 and $40 strike calls expiring on November 21st, are now up over 100% after the announcement of the U.S.’s potential involvement in supporting the economy of Argentina. Did someone get lucky? Or did they know about this announcement ahead of time and capitalize on these lottery style options.

 

Leveraging options data can help to identify anomalous option trades that could indicate insider trading ahead of big announcements and volatile periods.

 

FOR MORE INSIGHTS ON FUTURES OPTIONS, EQUITIES, THE OPTIONS MARKETS AND VOLATILITY, VISIT THE OPTIONMETRICS BLOG. [https://optionmetrics.com/blog/]

 

_There is an inherent risk involved with financial decisions. The information in this article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide financial advice. Views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of the company. _

 

 

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