Unusual options activity is the engine of James Altucher’s “Blue Spike” presentation. The pitch describes an AI system called Alpha 3 that flags what it calls a “blue spike” in options trading data, a signal that supposedly appeared before “87.3% of the biggest buyouts that have happened on Wall Street for five years straight.” That claim is the load-bearing wall of the whole pitch, so it is worth understanding exactly what unusual options activity is and how much weight it can actually carry.

What the Signal Is

Unusual options activity is simply options trading that falls outside a stock’s normal pattern. A scanner compares the day’s volume and flow against a historical baseline and flags anything anomalous: a strike price suddenly seeing ten times its average volume, a burst of far-out-of-the-money calls, a large trade executed at the ask rather than the bid.

The intuition is sound. Options are leveraged and they expire, so a trader with genuine information tends to buy short-dated calls rather than slowly accumulate shares. A sudden, aggressive, well-timed burst of call buying can indicate that somebody with conviction is positioning for a specific, near-term outcome. This is not superstition; it is a recognized, if imperfect, analytical tool, and it is used across professional trading desks.

The Number the Pitch Does Not Show

Here is the critical gap. The “87.3% of the biggest buyouts” statistic is a one-sided backtest. It says that blue spikes appeared before most large buyouts, assuming the data is accurate. It does not say the other half of the story: how often a blue spike fired with no buyout following.

That second number, the false-positive rate, is the one that determines whether following every signal is profitable. If the system fires twice a month, as Altucher himself says it does, then blue spikes are common events. A common signal that occasionally precedes a takeover is a very different thing from a rare signal that reliably predicts one. The pitch frames the former as the latter.

The Track Record, Examined

The pitch’s history is instructive when you separate stock calls from takeover calls. Altucher’s prior blue-spike signals did produce some genuinely strong stock picks: Marvell in early 2025 and Lumentum in early 2026 both became market-beating positions. But neither was a successful takeover prediction. The signal that most closely matches this one, an “Elon will acquire AST SpaceMobile by March 31” call from roughly six months ago, expired with no deal.

That pattern matters. The system appears to be good at finding stocks that then do well, and poor at predicting the specific event, a takeover, that this particular pitch is selling. Betting near-dated call options on a takeover prediction from a system with a thin record on takeover predictions is the riskiest possible use of the tool. You can read the AST SpaceMobile teardown for the full prior episode.

The Price of Being Late

One more reality check: the options the pitch recommends are already expensive. The December $95 call trades over $8, which means the market has already priced in meaningful takeover odds before the average reader ever sees the ad. The “front row seat before headlines” framing does not survive that detail. By the time unusual options activity becomes the subject of a promo, the edge it once contained has largely been spent.

For the underlying company, see our Viasat stock breakdown. For the full backstory, see our Paradigm Press’s ‘Blue Spike SpaceX Takeover Alert’ — The… article.

How the Pros Actually Use Unusual Activity

On a real trading desk, unusual options activity is treated as one input among many, not as a buy signal on its own. A trader who sees a burst of call volume will try to find out what it is: a hedge, an event, an index rebalance, or genuine accumulation. The flow is a clue that prompts investigation; it is not the conclusion.

That is why the pitch’s framing is subtly off. It describes the blue spike as something that “appeared before” the biggest buyouts, which is a look-back that always looks impressive. It is the forward version that matters, and the forward version is far murkier: for every spike that preceded a deal, there are spikes that preceded nothing.

The honest way to use the signal is as a filter, a reason to look closer at a stock, not a reason to buy near-dated calls. If the underlying company is good and the setup is real, you can often find a better entry than paying up for options that are already pricing in the very event you are betting on. That is the difference between using the tool and being used by the pitch.

The Honest Read

Unusual options activity is real and can be a useful input, but it is noisy, easily misread, and especially unreliable as a takeover predictor when the false-positive rate is never disclosed. The Blue Spike pitch is best understood as a lottery-ticket options bet wrapped around a legitimate company and a genuine scarcity story. The signal is worth knowing about; the specific claim it predicts takeovers is not one you should stake much on.

Ready to see the research? Click here to access James Altucher’s report.

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