| | | | | | | March 04, 2025 | | | |  | Jeff Bergstrom
Editor
John Lothian News | |
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| | | | Observations & Insight | | | 
Henry Hub Natural Gas futures and options, the global benchmark for natural gas, reached a new all-time ADV record of over 1.1M contracts this February. What's next for natural gas markets? | | | | | | Lead Stories | | | VIX Futures Curve Sends Distress Signal as Equities Slump; Inversion in VIX futures curve is typically short-lived; Premium often is seen during times of stock market stress
David Marino and Bernard Goyder - Bloomberg
A rout in the S&P 500 Index has boosted demand for short-term hedges, flipping the Cboe VIX Futures curve into a rare inversion.
Traders who had been lining up options to hedge against a steep pullback in the S&P 500 are reaping the benefit. In mid-February, huge volumes of call buying were seen in March-expiry strikes from 20 to 25, and last week more than 260,000 contracts of calls from 55 to 75 were bought.
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Wall Street Fear Index Stays High as Tariffs Take Effect
George Glover - Barron's
The most widely followed gauge of market fear and uncertainty was rising again, having spiked Monday after President Donald Trump signaled he would go through with his plan to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
The Cboe Volatility Index, which tracks S&P 500 options contracts and trades under the ticker VIX, climbed 1.2% to 23.05 in early trading. Any reading over 20 is an indicator of relatively high volatility.
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India VIX's Drop Shows Market Seen as Insulated From Trade Angst
Savio Shetty - Bloomberg
While trade-war concerns are gripping global markets, India's fear gauge has so far failed to indicate panic.
The India NSE Volatility Index is down for the ninth day out of 10, even as the Cboe Volatility Index in the US surged as much as 4.7 points on Monday. The gap between the two is now the widest since mid-December.
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Wall Street's Leveraged-Stock Boom Gathers Pace With 'MUSK' Fund
Lu Wang - Bloomberg
A little-known ETF firm is the latest to tap into relentless day-trader demand for leveraged stock bets, just as volatility lashes Wall Street. Quantify Funds, based in New York, has filed to list 10 derivatives-powered products, each holding a duo of stocks from a list that includes crypto-exposed companies, like Coinbase Global Inc. and Strategy, and technology megacaps such as Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. The idea is investors can get a $1 exposure in both stocks for every $1 invested in total.
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Industry sees weaker S&P 500 returns: SIFMA; After two hot years, returns look lower, risks abound, survey finds
James Langton - Investment Executive
Coming on the heels of two exceptionally strong years for U.S. stocks, market participants are expecting weaker gains this year, according to a new report from the U.S. Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). The U.S. industry trade group issued a report that analyzes the performance of U.S. securities markets in 2024, and surveys its equity and options trading committees, along with representatives from equity and options exchanges, on their expectations for the year ahead.
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| | | | | | Exchanges | | | Euronext plan to consolidate ETF trading venues sparks scepticism; Proposal to use single venue would raise liquidity and cut costs, but hurdles remain
Steve Johnson - Financial Times
Industry figures have welcomed ambitious plans by Euronext, the stock exchange group, to consolidate the thousands of exchange traded product listings scattered across its seven bourses on to one venue. However, some are sceptical about whether Euronext can achieve its aim - particularly by the end of the September, which is believed to be its target - given the political sensitivities around the health of national stock exchanges.
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CME Group Reports Record Monthly ADV of 33.1 Million Contracts in February, with Growth Across All Asset Classes
CME Group
CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today reported its February 2025 market statistics set a new monthly average daily volume (ADV) record of 33.1 million contracts, an increase of 12% year-over-year. In addition, its deeply liquid interest rate complex reached a monthly ADV record of 19.2 million contracts, driven by record monthly U.S. Treasury futures and options ADV of 13 million contracts and a 15% increase in SOFR futures volume. Market statistics are available in greater detail at https://cmegroupinc.gcs-web.com/monthly-volume.
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Cash market trading volumes in February 2025
Deutsche Boerse Cash Market
Deutsche Boerse's cash markets generated a turnover of EUR144.88 billion in February (previous year: 108.42 billion / previous month: EUR129.01 billion). EUR140.51 billion were attributable to Xetra (previous year: EUR104.41 billion / previous month: EUR124.97 billion), bringing the average daily Xetra trading volume to EUR7.03 billion (previous year: EUR4.97 billion / previous month: EUR5.68 billion). Trading volumes on Börse Frankfurt were EUR4.37 billion (previous year: EUR4.01 billion / previous month: EUR4.04 billion).
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| | | | | | Strategy | | | Crypto 'Alt Season' May Disappear for Good in Marketwide Slump; Smaller tokens are trading in tandem with Bitcoin this cycle; Alt season may not happen every crypto cycle, Dorman says
Olga Kharif - Bloomberg
One of the more dependable trading patterns in crypto appears to have become less reliable during the swift drawdown from the all-time highs reached amid the exuberance around the re-election of Donald Trump.
In the past, smaller, lesser-known tokens that were commonly referred to as altcoins tended to outperform market leader Bitcoin toward the end of crypto rallies as speculators sought to profit from their higher volatility, in what traders called "alt season."
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| | | | | | Miscellaneous | | | Is investing becoming more like gambling? Yes or no? Betting on the new retail trading craze.; A growing number of individual investors are gravitating to new products that are blurring the lines between investing and gambling
Gordon Gottsegen - MarketWatch
Savvas Avramidis is worried about the price of eggs - but not because their increasing cost will make his grocery haul unaffordable. The 35-year-old from Chicago has made a bet on the Kalshi prediction market that the price of eggs will go down.
"Will egg prices go up in Trump's first month in office?" is one of the "markets" that people are putting money on at Kalshi, and Avramidis is betting $2,443 that the answer will be "no."
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