barclays bank fined £26m for gold fixing, page-17

yeah, it also depends where the big players are

if the big players have been selling calls, then they will try and drive the market lower to make as many calls expire worthless as possible

and then if they wish to continue selling calls after the expiry, they will jerk the market back up to drive the call premium prices up so tht they can sell their options once more

rinse repeat till the next options expiry

big players RARELY buy options....they tend to sell them...btw

what you are describing has been more common in the US equity markets where market bears have been systematically killed for the last couple of years