Options are only traded during market hours.
Open interest increases if someone opens a position.
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Open Interest is well over 10,000 on $800 GME expiring tomorrow. So __somebody__ bought-to-open call options at $800. (I presume the sell-to-open side of that call option is just the Market Maker who happened to close that deal, taking the free money).
This is well over $1-million USD being YOLO'd onto an outrageous bet (that GME is going to be over $800 tomorrow at 4:30pm).
https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/gme/option-cha...
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In any case, my point is that retail is absolutely allowed to trade options overnight. Just because stock market is closed doesn't mean that the options-market is closed. The options-market is 24/7.
Retail can buy/sell call options overnight.
The Bloomberg opinion article states:
> Yesterday someone bought thousands of GameStop call options with an $800 strike price expiring tomorrow. They cost 87 cents per share. If the stock closes above $800 tomorrow those options will pay out; also though all notions of money and value and human society will be rendered meaningless, so I don’t know what you’ll do with your payout.
That hypothetical person YOLOing $100,000+ could very easily be a retail investor throwing away money for the lulz. Maybe someone who won big a few months ago and feels fine throwing their excess money away.