There's Some Very Unusual Options Activity In Santander Consumer Holdings

Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc SC shares are trading higher by $0.22 (2.5 percent) at $11.92 in Friday's session. The company has been on a mysterious tear since March 31, when it rallied from $8.90 to $10.49. It reported a huge EPS miss of $0.19 coupled with a big revenue miss of nearly $500 million -- something that would normally push a stock down.

Since that day, it has moved higher in spurts and is now trading near the $12 level. Interestingly, there is some very unusual call activity in the May 12 calls in Friday's session. Until today, the overall open interest in the issue was only 1562. The current volume in the 12 calls is 1295, which nearly equals the entire outstanding open interest. It should be noted that this option has been listed for months, so this spike in volume is highly unusual.

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There has also been some very unusual option activity in the May 13 and 14 calls. The volume in 13 calls is 581 against an open interest of 303, as of Thursday. Also, 354 of the May 14 calls have traded compared to an open interest of 651 as of Thursday..

According to options expert Nic Chahine, this makes $12 a huge inflection point. In other words, the issue will either have to find a resolution in price by moving closer to $14 or $10.