| | | | | | | March 27, 2025 | | | | | Jeff Bergstrom
Editor
John Lothian News | |
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| | | | Observations & Insight | | | | Cboe's Howson Outlines Global Expansion Strategy, Highlights 24/5 Trading and Retail Growth JohnLothianNews.com BOCA RATON, Fla. (JLN) - March 27, 2025 - David Howson, EVP and global president of Cboe Global Markets, outlined the exchange's vision for global expansion and product innovation in an interview with John Lothian News at FIA Boca50 in March. Howson emphasized Cboe's focus on meeting customer demand for 24/5 trading capabilities. "Our customers internationally are coming to us saying we want trading in daylight hours," Howson said. "We need to be engaged in the market structure debate, something that we need to solve to achieve that goal and meet our customers' needs." Watch the David Howson Video » Ryan Moroney - CQG Watch the Ryan Moroney Video » Mikko Andersson - Scila Watch the Mikko Andersson Video »
| | | | | | Lead Stories | | | Wall Street Fear Index Rises as Trump Tariffs Spook Investors
George Glover - Barron's
The most widely-followed market fear gauge was rising on Thursday after President Donald Trump said he would impose 25% tariffs on auto imports into the U.S.
The Cboe Volatility Index, which tracks S&P 500 options contracts and trades under the ticker VIX, climbed 1.5% to just under 19 in early trading. Any reading of above 20 is typically seen as a sign of heightened volatility.
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Hedge funds flock to hybrids to trade macro uncertainty; Firms repurpose structure made popular by Trump trades last year
Helen Bartholomew - Risk.net
Hedge funds are turning once again to hybrid options - a standout feature of 2024's wave of 'Trump trades'. This time, though, firms are using the structure to express views on tariffs and the threat of recession.
Investors placed high numbers of hybrid option bets on US exceptionalism in 2024, as they correctly predicted that a victory for Donald Trump in November's election would drive US equities and rates higher and strengthen the US dollar.
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Interactive Brokers Adds Crypto Tokens Associated With Trump
Emily Mason - Bloomberg
Online brokerage Interactive Brokers Group Inc. is adding four cryptocurrencies to its trading platform that have been highlighted during President Donald Trump's embrace of the digital-asset sector. Customers will have access to Solana, Cardano, XRP and Dogecoin tokens on the same platform they use for stocks, options, futures, currencies, bonds and mutual funds, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based company said in a statement Wednesday. The firm already offers Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.
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BlackRock Sees Outcome ETFs Jumping to $650 Billion by 2030
Isabelle Lee - Bloomberg
The world's largest asset manager is betting big on a growing breed of derivatives-powered ETFs that's shaking up the art of active portfolio management.
BlackRock Inc. projects that so-called outcome-orientated exchange-traded funds will triple to $650 billion in assets by 2030, fueled by growing financial-adviser adoption and changing market demographics.
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Cliff Asness's AQR Slams Buffer-ETF Boom on 'Investment Failure'
Denitsa Tsekova - Bloomberg
AQR Capital Management has come out swinging against the rise of options-powered funds that limit losses during stock downturns, claiming this growing form of portfolio insurance delivers lower returns - with more risk - than simpler alternatives.
New research from the Greenwich, Connecticut-based quant manager argues that so-called buffer or defined-outcome strategies, which now command an estimated $50 billion in exchange-traded fund assets, are no free lunch.
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Janus Henderson Starts ETF That Gives Global Access to US CLOs
Amedeo Goria - Bloomberg
The firm behind the largest ETF in the US's $816 billion market for collateralized loan obligations is launching a European-regulated fund, aimed at giving global investors tax-efficient access to the US securities.
Janus Henderson Group Plc is following in the footsteps of Invesco Ltd., which launched a similar dollar-denominated vehicle in February, alongside a product priced in euros. Interest in CLO ETFs, an asset class that's only been around since 2018, is picking up, with the number of funds doubling since August to a total of 24, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
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| | | | | | Exchanges | | | Robinhood, Moving Beyond Meme Stocks, Now Wants to Be Your Bank
Paige Smith - Bloomberg
Robinhood Markets Inc. has moved past its meme stock days to become known as the go-to trading platform for retail investors of all stripes - crypto zealots, novice financiers and sophisticated speculators alike. Now it's taking it a step further: It also wants to be your bank. Robinhood will roll out checking and savings accounts later this year to its paying "Gold" subscribers, but with a few twists. The Menlo Park, California-based firm aims to be less of a traditional bank for its customers and more of a private banking-like experience, according to Deepak Rao, vice president and general manager of Robinhood Money.
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Robinhood Customers Are Growing Up, and the Brokerage Wants to Keep Them; Brokerage that rode the meme-stock wave is rolling out financial services for a more mature set
Hannah Erin Lang - The Wall Street Journal
Robinhood, the digital brokerage that channeled the meme-stock and crypto craze, is angling to keep its youthful clientele as they graduate from YOLO investing to estate planning. The company said Wednesday it plans to roll out many new services, from wealth-management tools and bespoke investment portfolios to bank accounts. All of them cater to Americans as they age, earn more money and navigate more complicated financial lives. Robinhood customers' median age has climbed to 35 years old from 31 over the past five years.
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NYSE-parent ICE plans to launch battery metals derivatives this year
Reuters
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE.N), opens new tab plans to launch derivatives in battery metals cobalt and lithium spodumene in London later this year, an executive said on Tuesday.
"Our customer base is looking to us to provide products to hedge. Our role is to make sure there's a broad product suite," Chris Rhodes, president of ICE Futures Europe, told the FT Global Commodities Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland.
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| | | | | | Regulation & Enforcement | | | Fed Urged to Explore Hedge Fund Bailout Tool for Basis Trade
Alex Harris - Bloomberg
The Federal Reserve should consider setting up an emergency program that would close out highly leveraged hedge-fund trades in the event of a crisis in the $29 trillion US Treasuries market, according to a panel of financial experts. Any vicious unwinding of a swath of the estimated $1 trillion in hedge fund arbitrage bets would not only hamper the Treasuries market, but others as well - requiring Fed intervention to assure financial stability. When the US central bank did that in March 2020, during the initial Covid crisis, it engaged in massive outright purchases of Treasury securities, to the tune of about $1.6 trillion over several weeks.
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India market regulator proposes limiting derivatives expiry days to Tuesdays or Thursdays
Reuters via Yahoo Finance
India's markets regulator has proposed limiting the expiries of all equity derivatives contracts to either Tuesday or Thursday, to ensure optimal spacing for expiry dates.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), in a consultation paper published on its website on Thursday, said every stock exchange will be allowed one weekly benchmark index options contract, on their chosen day - either Tuesday or Thursday.
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| | | | | | Technology | | | Exegy Supports BMLL's Recent Addition Of Historical US OPRA Options Data; BMLL historical options data to complement Exegy's real-time OPRA data; Collaboration cements existing partnership and paves road for continuing integration, providing excellent data and services for global market participants
BMLL
BMLL Technologies (BMLL), the leading, independent provider of harmonised, Level 3, 2 and 1 historical data and analytics to the world's financial markets, and Exegy, the only firm delivering comprehensive, front-office solutions for market data and trading across latency spectrum, today announced that it has expanded its partnership for historical OPRA options data. In a move designed to enhance OPRA options trading, Exegy and BMLL Technologies have deepened their partnership, delivering a unified data stream that seamlessly bridges real-time and historical market data. This collaboration is the logical next step in Exegy's existing partnership with BMLL, which started in Q3 2023 after the release of its latest ticker plant platform.
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BMLL and Exegy partner on unified data stream; Specifically, the collaboration combines BMLL's historical data with Exegy's real-time OPRA data.
Claudia Preece - The Trade
BMLL Technologies and Exegy have enhanced their established partnership to deliver a unified data stream for historical OPRA options data. The two firms began their partnership in Q3 2023 with the release of Exegy's latest ticker plant platform. Paul Humphrey, chief executive of BMLL, said:âEUR¯"This [partnership] means that if clients are backtesting historical data and find alpha, they can quickly and efficiently replicate that format in the real-time world.
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| | | | | | Strategy | | | Bitcoin Options Worth $12 Billion Expire Tomorrow-Here's What It Means; Deribit's own DVOL index is signaling low implied volatility and limited expectations for sharp price action," the CEO said.
Stacy Elliott - Decrypt
Although $12 billion worth of Bitcoin options contracts expire tomorrow-one of the largest quarterly expiries that derivatives exchange Deribit has seen-CEO Luuk Strijers says he expects volatility to be subdued.
On Deribit alone, the March 28 expiry affects 45% of the open options contracts on the platform. The exchange currently has $27 billion worth of open interest in Bitcoin contracts, with the put/call ratio skewing slightly pessimistic at 0.52.
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| | | | | | Miscellaneous | | | Commodity traders complain about cost of Trump 'tweet-driven' uncertainty; Trafigura 'semi-seriously' looks at changing traders' hours to match president's social media output
Leslie Hook, Tom Wilson and Camilla Hodgson - Financial Times
US President Donald Trump's "tweet-driven" uncertainty is imposing extra costs on commodity traders, slowing their investment plans and even prompting some European houses to consider changing their working hours to align with Trump's social media output. Trump's frequent messages on X and his own Truth Social platform - often sent at odd hours - have sparked volatility in commodities markets over recent weeks and left traders scrambling to react. Richard Holtum, Trafigura's newly appointed chief executive, said he was "semi-seriously" considering changing traders' working hours in Geneva to 2pm to midnight.
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