How One Trade on a Dead Stock Made Me a Legend VIEW IN BROWSER By Jonathan Rose, founder, Masters in Trading
It started with a blip on my options scanner — a surge of strange trades in a stock everyone had written off for dead. It led to one of the boldest calls of my career. And within months, that blip turned into a 10,000% eruption that made Wall Street tremble. In 2021, at the height of the so-called retail apocalypse, it looked like the end for the videogame store chain GameStop. GME traded around $4.78 a share to begin 2021. Considering it had traded as low as $1 in July 2020, no one was really paying attention. It looked like dead money. But I saw something different... What most people didn't know was that the "smart money" was getting into position. Institutional traders were piling into bearish bets. And I was one of the first to spot it... For nearly three decades, I traded options for the pros – whether on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange or as the partner of a well-known bond prop firm. It was my job to leverage the sort of intel institutional traders use to place huge, market-making bets. So GameStop's massive trading volume grabbed my attention. It's what I like to call “Unusual Options Activity”– when the smart money tips their hand before anyone else knows what's coming. Right after I spotted that tell, I noticed something else... Another player was quietly piling into $5 GameStop calls. For folks new to options, calls are simply bullish contracts options traders take on a stock. And that position told me the price was about to spike... hard. So I recommended the September 1st-dated calls at the $5 strike to my followers on YouTube in August 2020 (this was years before I joined InvestorPlace). Keep in mind this was well before near-daily headlines started coming out about the stock. I knew I had spotted a massive trade in the options market before most people knew anything about it. It was powerful intel that I simply had to share with my viewers. And once I did, the domino effect was incredible... The Pile-On No One Saw Coming The day traders who gathered in a Reddit group called “WallStreetBets” soon realized the same thing I did... They figured if enough people got together and bought GameStop, they could "squeeze" the hedge funds out of their short positions. That would force a massive run-up in the share price. Even Elon Musk encouraged his followers to buy more shares. And then the unbelievable happened... From August to January 2021, GameStop surged from $4.50 to $483. That's a ridiculous 10,633% surge. And my followers were perfectly positioned to benefit. Beyond that first video recommendation, I kept ringing the bell on this stock. One of my YouTube followers, CDean30, put it perfectly... You're the real one who predicted this, Jonathan. I'll admit it. I watched your video and have been playing it since AUGUST when you made the other video. That initial trade in GME? It netted my viewers more than 202% within just a couple days of posting that first video. For the so-called smart money? GME’s surge was a painful lesson... Melvin Capital, a hedge fund that took a massive short position in GameStop, lost 30% of its funds in less than a month. Two other famous hedge funds, Citadel and Point72, had to step up with $2.75 billion in capital to save Melvin from collapsing. That wasn't the end of the story, though. I spotted another huge – and profitable – move in GME in May 2022 that landed my viewers gains of more than 100% in just under a month. Now, I'm not telling you all this to brag. There's a lesson here that comes down to one approach every trader needs to know... | Recommended Link | | | | This cutting-edge strategy lets you see where Wall Street is placing bets – and place your money right alongside them. Louis Navellier, Eric Fry, and Luke Lango just revealed this breakthrough alongside the man who created it. Click here to learn more. |  | | How the Smart Money Trades I'll put it in simple terms: Great trading is all about leveraging great intel. I'm not talking about reading chart patterns or following the latest CNBC headlines. That's all surface-level. I'm talking about the kind of insight that only institutional traders, hedge funds, and investment banks have. GameStop's massive run was a perfect example. And leveraging that type of data? That’s been my job for 30-plus years. My experience speaks for itself... In 1997, I got my start as a floor trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I traded futures on the Nasdaq and S&P 500 during the dot-com boom and bust. By 2003, I'd become director of trading at a leading proprietary trading firm. I left the floor to join a small group of traders focused on volatility in the bond market. I was making markets for major players like Goldman Sachs – all while managing millions in capital from my own stable of traders. But ultimately, I felt as if my best work was still to come. I found myself thinking, "Why can't regular folks get in on these smart money buy signals?" And that brings us right back to the tools traders use to spot these big moves in the first place. I saw GameStop's run because, 10 years ago, I hit on one really big idea. I developed a software tool around a key market indicator. It's a tool that alerts us to the biggest trades changing hands in the options market ahead of the pack. I call it the Unusual Options Activity (UOA) Scanner. And it has seriously changed the game for my members. Our gains in the first half of 2025 were simply phenomenal… - In May, we rode a massive smart-money bet on multinational mining group Sibanye Stillwater Ltd. (SBSW) to a 141% gain in just 39 days...
- In March, we exited our position in Alignment Healthcare Inc. (ALHC) after less than a month for a near-200% gain.
That major hot streak happened while the markets were melting down earlier this year. Tariff drama and geopolitical conflict had been rocking the markets for months. But we stuck to our guns. And we leaned on the fundamentals to get us through one of the most turbulent markets in history. Then we turned around and bested those gains with a series of all-timer trades… In the last six months alone, we’ve notched all-timers in dozens of stocks. These include… - 209% on Lyft Inc. (LYFT)…
- Over 700% on MP Materials Corp. (MP)…
- 959% on Albemarle Corp. (ALB)…
- And a whole wave of triple-digit gainers across my most-watched sectors like AI, drones, and nuclear stocks.
Just looking back at this past week, we managed two triple-digit gainers in record time. My viewers closed out bullish options calls in Comstock Resources Inc. (CRK) for a 108% return in just 15 days. That big win joined another huge profit in Grindr Inc. (GRND). We managed that stock to 100% gains within just a few weeks. All those triple-digit winners are just the tip of the iceberg. You see, these trades aren't just once-in-a-market-cycle opportunities. The markets are handing us even more opportunities like these now. And if you know how to track real market flow – not the headlines, but the “unusual” footprints that institutional players leave behind – it's possible to spot these opportunities even when chaos strikes. Going All-In on Unusual Activity Most traders wait for CNBC to tell them any given sector is rallying. By then, the move is already over. But when you learn to read “Unusual Options Activity”? When you understand what the expected move is signaling? You're trading with the same information institutions are using. And you're seeing where the big money is getting in position before the crowd figures it all out. I want everyone who’s eager to listen to have that same knowledge. The kind that gets you a beat on the biggest opportunities before they hit most investors’ radars. I want to give you the exact tools you need to discover those massive opportunities taking shape in the options market that fly under most traders’ radars. I just went live with my “Trade of the Decade” at The Profit Surge Event. Not only that, but during that presentation, I showed viewers exactly how to systematically track picks from my InvestorPlace colleagues – Louis Navellier, Eric Fry, and Luke Lango – and pair them with a simple tweak that can multiply the payoff on great stock ideas. This is the same approach we've used all year to stay ahead of massive shifts in precious metals, commodities, tech stocks, and much more. While everyone else was reacting to headlines, we were positioning where the real money is flowing. For The Profit Surge Event, Louis, Eric, and Luke share their highest-conviction plays. These are the names they're watching most closely right now. Plus, I show you how to get ahold of my Trade of the Decade… plus three more trades that I believe could be home runs based on my market forecast and Unusual Options Activity. You can watch a full replay of our special event for a limited time. Remember, the creative trader wins, | 
