Wouldn’t selling at tops cause option prices to reduce? Only after they sold at the top will they bring cash market down. Keyword being “unusually”, i.e., without a corresponding rise or fall in the cash market. Also timing helps - expiry days or close to the expiry.
There were two main strategies—quiet expiry and violent expiry. In a quiet expiry, they would sell a huge number of options to drive their prices to absurdly low levels—options were dirt cheap. Then, they’d ensure the market didn’t move, so those short positions remained profitable. No matter the news—war, trade conflict—they kept the market still. The intent was always to profit from artificially suppressed volatility.
In a volatile expiry, they’d buy massive amounts of call options, making them extraordinarily expensive. Then, in the second half of the trading day, they’d deliberately push the market in the direction they’d bet on—upwards or downwards—ensuring those bets paid off. They weren’t just anticipating moves; they were manufacturing them.
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