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John Lothian News | |
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Lead Stories JPMorgan Fund's Expiring S&P Options Position Draws Market Focus
Yiqin Shen - Bloomberg
US equities traders are watching for a pickup in volatility with the quarterly rolloff of a huge options position that's been serving as a sort of floor for the S&P 500 Index over the past month. The $21 billion JPMorgan Hedged Equity Fund (JHEQX) - which uses derivatives to protect against declines and volatility - holds tens of thousands of contracts as part of a collar position that expires Monday, to be rolled over to next quarter. It's an event that grabs the market's attention every few months.
/jlne.ws/44HNi0j Implied Vols Collapse As Stocks Hit New Record High
Mandy Xu - Cboe
Implied volatilities fell across asset classes last week as geopolitical risks dissipated and economic data came in better than expected. Oil was in the spotlight once again, after Iran and Israel agreed to a ceasefire. WTI 1M implied vol fell over 17 pts while skew normalized back to flat (vs. record inversion two weeks ago). Rates vol declined on better inflation data, with the VIXTLT index down 9 pts to its lowest level since "Liberation Day". Even gold, which had consistently screened as the richest cross-asset vol for the past few months, saw its volatility normalize meaningfully. See chart below.
/jlne.ws/4lCFOBF Zero-Day Options Had Their Best Month in May. But, Should You Join the Party?
Daniel Liberto - Investopedia
Zero days to expiry (0DTE) options are becoming the go-to tool for many traders. In May 2025, these one-day bets on market movements accounted for more than 61% of S&P 500 options volume, as retail investors chase the dream of quick riches with clearly defined risk.
The potential to quickly secure a huge gain with a defined maximum loss appeals to many retail investors. However, there are strings attached, and, as is the case with high-risk, high-reward gambles, the losers far outnumber the winners.1
/jlne.ws/44b1Qp5 Hedge Funds Pile In as Big US Banks Soar to All-Time Highs
Natalia Kniazhevich - Bloomberg
US lenders are on a tear and hedge funds are snapping up shares at a furious pace, underscoring Wall Street's increasing conviction that their record-breaking rally has more room to run.Last week, net buying by the fast-money crowd rose to the highest in nearly a decade, data compiled by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s prime brokerage show. That optimism, along with heightened expectations for interest-rate cuts that could spur growth and lending, and a Federal Reserve announcement that all of the biggest banks passed its annual stress test, helped a gauge of financial stocks in the S&P 500 Index hit a record on Monday.
/jlne.ws/45QJafB Taiwan Life Insurers Caught in Dilemma With Costly FX Hedges
Chien-Hua Wan and Masaki Kondo - Bloomberg
Taiwan's life insurers were caught flat-footed when the local dollar surged in May, with the latest data suggesting that elevated hedging costs have hampered efforts to mitigate currency risks.
Major Taiwanese life insurers' hedging against foreign-currency volatility stood at 47.2% of their overseas asset holdings in the first quarter, the lowest level since mid-2024, according to Bloomberg's analysis. The study was based on the firms' quarterly presentation materials and showed that the level of protection has fallen from an all-time high of 61.9% reached in 2017.
/jlne.ws/3ZYkf68 Exchanges IEX Pushes Back on Options-Exchange Criticism
Terry Flanagan - Traders Magazine
IEX Group is pushing back on the latest round of criticism that its planned options exchange would harm retail investors.
At issue is IEX's Options Risk Parameter, a mechanism that would cancel or adjust certain price quotes in certain market conditions. IEX says the aim is to reduce latency arbitrage - a strategy used by some speed-oriented market participants to take advantage of stale quotes - and thus improve market quality and help end-user investors; critics such as Citadel Securities say it would result in more retail orders either going unfilled or being executed at worse prices.
/jlne.ws/45RdXZU Miami International Holdings Announces Successful Launch of MIAX Futures Onyx Trading Platform
MIAX
Miami International Holdings, Inc. (MIH), a technology-driven leader in building and operating regulated financial markets across multiple asset classes, today announced the successful launch of MIAX Futures Onyx, a proprietary technology platform designed to power trading of agricultural and financial futures, and options on futures in geographically diverse locations.
/jlne.ws/3TVpC2g NYSE Options: ORF July 2025 Pricing Changes *Reminder*
NYSE
Effective July 1, 2025, NYSE American Options and NYSE Arca Options will modify its ORF fee to $0.0023, from $0.0038 per contract, as previously announced. The modified ORF will remain in effect through December 31, 2025, after which the $0.0038 per contract fee will be reinstated.
/jlne.ws/4kkzsWm SIX publishes the monthly key figures of SIX Swiss Exchange and BME Exchange on trading and listing activities in Switzerland and Spain
SIX
SIX Swiss Exchange and BME Exchange witnessed significant growth in trading activity for H1 2025 in several asset classes. Combined trading turnover for the first half of 2025 rose 19.3% compared to 2024,surpassing EUR 892bn. ETFs saw the highest growth on SIX Swiss Exchange in the past six months. ETF trading turnover for the first half of the year doubled, growing 100.8%. In total, CHF 68.8bn have been traded in the segment in2025, with a 56.1% growth in the number of transactions. This contributed to a strong 21.1% increase for H1 in total turnover on SIX Swiss Exchange, surpassing CHF 608.5bn at the half year mark. Activity in ETFs was complemented by a 16.1% increase in equities turnover, alongside a 11.0% rise in fixed income turnover.
/jlne.ws/40l6wqj CME Group to Launch FX Tape+ to Provide Centralized Reference Prices for the FX Market
CME Group
CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced that it will launch CME FX Tape+ to provide centralized reference prices and a comprehensive view of FX market liquidity from its transparent central limit order book (CLOB) marketplaces, including FX futures, EBS Market, FX Spot+âEURŒ and FX Link. FX Tape+ is set to launch later this year.
/jlne.ws/4khqRDK Update: SPAN Files Decommission on FTP Sites - Effective August 18, 2025
CME Group
Please note that due to SPAN users' request for additional time to switch to Datamine, the new deadline is rescheduled to August 18, 2025. With this update CME plans to stop publishing all SPAN files on FTP sites effective August 18, 2025. Following the CME Notice published March 12th and Reminder CME Notice published June 3rd CME Group will provide SPAN files only via the SFTP and CME Datamine services. SPAN files will no longer be available over the public FTP or CME Group website.This change applies to CME Group SPAN files as well as partner exchanges SPAN for BMD, XMA, SMX, CFE ... etc.
/jlne.ws/44aaAMn Robinhood Pushes Deeper Into Crypto With Own Blockchain, Tokenized Stock Launch
Krisztian Sandor - CoinDesk
Digital brokerage Robinhood (HOOD) is extending its crypto footprint with a slate of new offerings, including developing its own blockchain network based on Arbitrum ARB and launching tokenized stocks trading, the company announced on Monday.The firm today has debuted its stock token offering, issued on the Ethereum layer-2 Arbitrum, for European users, giving access to over 200 U.S. equities and ETFs witt around-the-clock trading during weekdays. With the launch, Robinhood is expanding its crypto-focused EU app with tokenized stocks into an "all-in-one investment app powered by crypto," the company said in a release shared with CoinDesk.
/jlne.ws/3GrpODr Robinhood's CEO on the Plan to Tokenize Everything; Here comes 24-hour stock trading.
Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway - Bloomberg
Robinhood, the company known for first introducing commission-free trading, has now become behemoth with all kinds of different business lines including credit cards, savings vehicles, crypto, and wealth management. This week it's announced further expansion with news that it's launching its own chain, as well as tokenized stock trading (that for now is only available in the EU). On this episode, we speak with founder and CEO, Vlad Tenev, about its new endeavors, as well as the legacy of the 2021 meme stock mania, the evolution of the YOLO traders, the changing regulatory environment, and when we can expect to have 24/7 on-chain stock trading in the US.
/jlne.ws/4kj5O3Q Strategy 'Crypto ETF Summer' Kicks Off With New Blockchain-Powered Trade
Isabelle Lee - Bloomberg
Wall Street is about to get its first taste of a new kind of cryptocurrency product as the Trump administration eases the regulatory grip on the digital-asset industry.
A new yield-chasing crypto fund tracking Solana has been cleared for debut and plans to launch Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified, capping months of back-and-forth with US regulators.
/jlne.ws/44oBmzd
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