I was wondering what would cause 4am spikes on XOP to $167 when it trades in the $130's? They happened on 1/11 and 1/12. See the attachment on the 20-Day 1 Hr. candles. I have a theory that it is to the hold value of OTM options. Could that be plausible?
On January 12, during pre-marketing trading to open at 09:30, there were no trades above $136.70 Possibly you're looking at a chart showing bid/ask levels (or a truncated sample of such). eg. the first bid and ask submitted at 4am on XOP was from EDGX (Cboe) showing 120.00 / 199.99 but was quickly (within a millisecond or two) brought to tighter levels.