Virtu Financial (VIRT) unusual activity on 3/30 as 4000 September $43 OTM calls were bought to open for $340,000 in a name with very little open interest. VIRT has been impressive since late 2021 with shares +30% YTD and back at a previous high level from 2018. The recent weekly bull flag breakout at the $36 levels measures to a target of $44 with shares currently consolidating above the 8-day moving average under the $38 level. VIRT’s CEO bought 100,000 shares at $22.45 back in August 2020. VIRT is a leading financial firm that leverages cutting edge technology to deliver liquidity to the global markets and innovative, transparent trading solutions to clients. Its product suite includes offerings in execution, liquidity sourcing, analytics and broker-neutral, multi-dealer platforms in workflow technology. The Market Making segment principally consists of market making in the cash, futures, and options markets across global equities, fixed income, currencies, cryptocurrencies, and commodities. VIRT has a market cap of $6.5B and trades 10.45X Earnings, 9.7X EBITDA and 6.15X FCF with a 2.57% yield. On its latest earnings call VIRT noted that crypto market making will be a significant growth area for the firm for the foreseeable future. VIRT growth drivers include rising complexity of markets, new asset classes, new business models such as zero commission trading and further electronification of markets. VIRT also tends to be a beneficiary of more volatile trading environments with active volumes. Analysts have an average target of $38 with short interest low at 1.5% of the float. Piper raised its target to $45 last week seeing strong volumes/volatility leading to upside for Q1 earnings in early May.