| August 20, 2024 | | | |  | Jeff Bergstrom
Editor
John Lothian News | |
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| | | | Observations & Insight | | | 
Volatility Insight of the Week: Gold CVOL (GCVL), as measured with CME Group's Volatility Index, remains at elevated levels amid recent price rises. To learn more about CVOL, please visit here. | | | | | | Lead Stories | | | Oil Options Show Market's Middle East Worries Starting to Ease
Alex Longley and Yongchang Chin - Bloomberg
Oil options markets are losing their bullish hue as hopes grow that Israel and Hamas will agree to a cease-fire and as Iran holds back for now on a much-anticipated retaliatory attack.
Having turned the most bullish in almost four months last week, the options market's so-called skew - the cost of insuring against spikes or troughs in prices - has tumbled back to a bearish bias in the past few days. Traders had previously hedged against a fresh escalation in a region that accounts for about a third of the world's oil output.
/jlne.ws/4cxox7J
Citi Says Hedge Funds Are Using Dollars for New Carry Trades
Alice Atkins and Carter Johnson - Bloomberg
Citigroup Inc. says the carry trade is back, but with a key difference: hedge funds are borrowing US dollars rather than the yen for their wagers on emerging markets. Investors have ramped up bets for more than three quarter points of interest-rate cuts from the Federal Reserve this year. Combined with the Bank of Japan's hike in July, that's damaged the old model of wagering on robust US growth and rock-bottom Japanese borrowing costs.
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The Market Volatility Has Calmed Down - Or Has It?
Karishma Vanjani - Barron's
Wall Street was panic-stricken earlier this month, with the market's fear gauge exceeding levels seen even during the Sept. 11 attacks. The mayhem has subsided, but concerns about aftershocks linger.
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Investors pile back into equities amid full recovery in market confidence; Deutsche bank data shows rapid recovery in confidence as markets bet on "Goldilocks" scenario for US economy
George Steer - Financial Times
Investors who slashed their equity exposure during a bout of market volatility in early August sharply increased their holdings as global stocks rebounded last week, Deutsche Bank flow data shows.
In a sign of how quickly markets have recovered from the dramatic sell-off, positioning among discretionary investors who judge when to buy or sell last week jumped sharply to fully recoup [the previous week's] decline and is now well above average again, Deutsche said in a note on Monday.
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Option gauge shows how swiftly traders have moved on from early August stock swoon
Jamie Chisholm - MarketWatch
It's as if it never happened. The bout of extreme angst that climaxed with the August 5th stock market swoon has well and truly subsided. Not only has the S&P 500 retraced its losses after an eight-day winning streak containing a 7.9% rally, but the CBOE VIX index, the volatility measure known as Wall Street's fear gauge, has dropped from its recent peak of 65 to just 15. Indeed, such is the calm, the CBOE Options Equity Put/Call Ratio has dropped from near 1 at the time of the rout to just 0.47, its lowest since July last year.
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Are investors safe as VIX retraces at record pace?
Sam Boughedda - Investing.com
As the VIX retraces at a record pace, Bank of America said in a note Tuesday that investors may be tempted to breathe a sigh of relief. However, the bank questioned whether the coast is really clear just yet. Analysts at BofA explained that after the volatility spike on August 5, the VIX rapidly stabilized, dropping back to its pre-August year-to-date average level in just seven daysâEUR"a record-setting retracement. "The speed of this retracement has been historic, with the VIX dropping from its peak to below its long-term median in just 7 days (fastest in history)," the bank stated. Despite the sharp recovery, Bank of America warns that numerous risks, ranging from macroeconomic to political and seasonal factors, still loom on the horizon.
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OCC Stories: Daniel Ruvolo on Cross-Functional Teamwork; Daniel Ruvolo, part of OCC's Legal Services team, shares how departments across OCC are eager to collaborate and accomplish their goals together. Read his story!
OCC
The culture at OCC is incredibly collegial and collaborative. Rather than each department operating as a separate silo, the various stakeholders work together well to ensure the best possible result. Getting folks to do this is fairly easy, as everyone is willing to pitch in to make sure we collectively achieve our goals.
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| | | | | | Exchanges | | | TSX climbs to record high, led by metal mining shares
Fergal Smith - Reuters
Canada's main stock index rose to an all-time high on Monday, helped by gains for financial and metal mining shares, as investors awaited potential clues this week that the Federal Reserve could soon begin an interest rate cutting campaign.
The S&P/TSX composite index ended up 61.78 points, or 0.3%, at 23,116.39, moving past the record closing high it set on July 31.
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Solana's ETF Hits Major Roadblock as SEC Raises Concerns About Whether Solana is a Security; SEC's concerns about Solana's security status led Cboe to pull 19b-4 forms, with 21Shares' S-1 registration also no longer visible
Perion Lim - Blockhead
The potential for Solana ETFs to hit the market has come to a halt as the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) expresses concerns about whether the cryptocurrency is a security. According to reports, the SEC held discussions with prospective Solana ETF issuers regarding Solana's (SOL) potential status as a security before the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) removed related 19b-4 filings.
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VanEck insists Solana ETF "remains in play" despite regulatory uncertainty; VanEck also maintained that Solana is a digital asset commodity like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Oluwapelumi Adejumo - CryptoSlate
Matthew Sigel, VanEck's head of digital assets research, said the firm's Solana spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) application is still active despite the removal of the 19b-4 form from the Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) website. Over the weekend, the crypto community noticed that the 19b-4 filings for VanEck and 21Shares documents filed by exchanges on behalf of issuers had disappeared from the Cboe site. Reports later suggested the removal stemmed from concerns that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) might classify the SOL token as a security.
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Cboe Global Markets (BATS:CBOE) Reaches New 1-Year High After Dividend Announcement
Defense World
Cboe Global Markets, Inc. hit a new 52-week high on Monday following a dividend announcement from the company. The company traded as high as $205.16 and last traded at $204.43, with a volume of 482991 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $202.94.
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| | | | | | Regulation & Enforcement | | | Carl Icahn hit by SEC disclosure charges after short seller attack; Activist and his company will pay $2mn to resolve probe launched after Hindenburg Research report
Amelia Pollard and James Fontanella-Khan and Ortenca Aliaj - Financial Times
Carl Icahn, one of Wall Street's most prominent activist investors, and his company have agreed to settle US regulatory charges that they failed to disclose the billionaire had pledged company securities as collateral for personal loans. Icahn and his Icahn Enterprises company will pay $500,000 and $1.5mn, respectively, to settle the civil charges from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a statement from the regulator on Monday. Neither he nor Icahn Enterprises admitted to or denied the agencyâEURâ¢s findings.
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Icahn's Margin Loan Deal With SEC Caps $19 Billion Wealth Plunge; InvestorâEURâ¢s fortune fell more than 75% since May of 2023; SEC deal follows last yearâEURâ¢s report by short-seller Hindenburg
Annie Massa - Bloomberg
Carl Icahn's settlement of a regulatory investigation caps a 15-month period that has seen the investor's net worth plummet by $19 billion. Shares of Icahn Enterprises LP fell 4.7% Monday after the billionaire and his investment firm agreed to pay $2 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that he didnâEURâ¢t provide enough information about how he was borrowing against his stake in the company.
/jlne.ws/4dRbKy4
| | | | | | Strategy | | | Bitcoin Options Block Trading Flashes Bearish Signs Despite BTC Reclaiming $60K; Bitcoin options block trading calls have resumed with most traders selling the call options and buying put options.
Bhushan Akolkar - CoinGape
After a long period of dormancy, the Bitcoin options block trading has seen a significant resurgence clocking notable activity to more than $500 million in notional value. The recent trading activity suggests that traders have turned more bearish despite the Bitcoin (BTC) price attempting a reversal surging past $61,000 as of press time.
/jlne.ws/3AsjCHU
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