Zoetis options traders heard about a screwworm case in Texas and started celebrating like they'd found the cure for retail trading. One confirmed case. A single larvae-infested wound in the entire state. Wall Street responded with the urgency of a fire drill in a fireworks factory. Two biotech stocks surged on the possibility that maybe, just maybe, more cows might get eaten alive by flies. This is what passes for investment thesis in 2025.
Screwworms are parasites that burrow into open wounds and consume living tissue. The last time they were a problem in Texas was the 1960s. Someone found one case and traders treated it like the opening scene of a pandemic thriller. Never mind that the USDA eradicated these things from the United States decades ago through a program so successful it became a textbook example of applied science. One confirmed infection and suddenly retail traders are buying call options on animal pharmaceutical companies. The screwworm probably has a better understanding of supply and demand than these people.
Zoetis makes animal health products. Their stock trades at $170. Options volume surged because traders saw a headline with the word "case" and "Texas" and their brains went straight to jackpot mode. The entire options flow strategy here is predicting an outbreak based on sample size of one. This is like buying fire insurance stocks because your neighbor's garage smoldered for three minutes. Except the garage is in Texas and the fire happened sixty years ago and someone just found an ember.
The second biotech stock riding this screwworm sympathy trade remains unnamed in the coverage. Probably because even the people trading it can't spell it. Somewhere in a Schwab account, a guy who cannot locate Texas on a map just bought calls on a veterinary medicine company because his Discord channel said "screwworm catalyst." His position will expire worthless in eighteen days. The screwworm will continue not caring about quarterly earnings.
The cow survived, by the way. The stock traders won't.
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