'It says I owe $179,000' – option traders hit with massive margin calls as winning bets against failing banks' left in limbo for weeks

Thousands of retail option traders who made prescient bets against shares of Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Financial Group, the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank, were relieved on Tuesday this week when shares of both failed banks resumed trading again on over-the-counter markets after a roughly two-week trading halt.

It marked the end of what one academic described as one of the more interesting episodes since a boom in retail option trading began in early 2020, around the time that the COVID-19 pandemic started….