| | | | | | | March 18, 2025 | | | |  | Jeff Bergstrom
Editor
John Lothian News | |
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| | | | Lead Stories | | | Wall Street's Derivatives-ETF Craze Amps Up on Record 71 Filings
Isabelle Lee - Bloomberg
A pioneer of the $100 billion derivatives-powered ETF market has filed for more than 70 new funds in one go, in a bet that amped-up investment products will boom anew despite fears of industry overcrowding and investor exhaustion.
New York-based Direxion on Friday submitted paperwork to the Securities and Exchange Commission to introduce a fresh batch of leveraged and inverse ETFs, in the largest-ever filing spree from an asset manager, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
/jlne.ws/4iuO6uh
Swiss Franc Option Activity Surges as Traders Bet on More Losses
Vassilis Karamanis - Bloomberg
In one of the busiest days in history for Swiss franc options, traders bet big that the currency will extend its recent losses. A total notional of EUR4.6 billion ($5 billion) traded in euro-franc options on Monday, the third largest on record, data from the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation show. And almost 90% of the total exposure showed bets on a weaker Swiss currency.
/jlne.ws/4ie6mrw
Wall Street's Fear Gauge Shows Worry, Not Panic
Karishma Vanjani - Barron's
The Cboe Volatility Index, Wall Street's fear gauge, has been above 20-a level associated with volatile markets and losses for shares-for the past 11 trading days.
/jlne.ws/3RfilJl
Short sellers make $16bn profit from Tesla's share price plunge; Payday follows years of pain for hedge funds that bet against Elon Musk's electric-car maker
George Steer and Costas Mourselas - Financial Times
Hedge fund short sellers have made $16.2bn betting against Tesla's shares as the value of Elon Musk's electric car company has halved over the past three months. Traders positioned to make money from falls in the share price have accumulated the paper profits since the stock's closing high on December 17, according to data provider S3 Partners. Tesla's market value has plunged more than $700bn over the same period, wiping more than $100bn from Musk's net worth.
/jlne.ws/4kwXQ8D
Hedge-Fund Momentum Bets Crater All at Once in Volatile Markets
Denitsa Tsekova and Justina Lee. - Bloomberg
One of the simplest hedge-fund strategies is misfiring this year as once-reliable trends, like betting on Big Tech and the outperformance of the US economy, crater en masse. Momentum investing, which buys up the market winners and sells the losers, has been swept up in the tariff-fueled volatility assailing global investors in 2025. That's a blow to trend-chasing quants spreading their bets across a slew of assets - and their hedge-fund peers more broadly, who tend to ramp up exposures to winning trades in the good times, while curtailing risk in the bad times.
/jlne.ws/42cxn92
FIA Boca 2025: How Markets Are Reinventing Resilience
Mela Partners
Market resilience has never been more critical than it is today. At FIA Boca 2025, industry leaders gathered to discuss how global financial markets are adapting to economic uncertainty, regulatory shifts, and technological innovation. The event provided a platform for deep insights and strategic discussions, highlighting both challenges and opportunities ahead. At the Keynote Fireside Chat, Citigroup Chairman John Dugan addressed the economic pressures shaping capital markets. He emphasized the impact of inflation, geopolitical tensions, and interest rate fluctuations on global liquidity. Dugan also spoke about the evolving regulatory environment, underscoring the importance of financial institutions adapting to new compliance standards while ensuring market stability.
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| | | | | | Exchanges | | | Cboe Options to introduce wide market protection
Maria Nikolova - FOW
Effective April 3, 2025 on EDGX Options Exchange, and effective April 7, 2025 on Cboe Options (C1), Cboe C2 Options, and BZX Options Exchanges, subject to regulatory review, Cboe will introduce wide market protection (WMP) functionality to reduce the risk of orders executing at adverse prices.
WMP will be initiated when an incoming market order, limit order, or elected stop/stop limit order is received into the book while the NBBO is deemed wide. Protected orders will be displayed and worked in the book at an initial benchmark price and iterate to progressively more aggressive levels, up to their limit.
/jlne.ws/4bzLjND
CME Group Announces First Trades of Solana (SOL) Futures
CME Group
CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced its new Solana (SOL) futures are now available for trading in both a micro-sized (25 SOL) and a larger-sized contract (500 SOL). The first trade, a block, took place on Sunday, March 16, and was executed between FalconX and StoneX.
/jlne.ws/3FwtC5t
Korea Exchange seeks global collaboration for nighttime derivatives trading
Chosun Biz
Korea Exchange noted on the 13th that it participated in the 'FIA International Derivatives Conference' held in Boca Raton, USA, to promote key initiatives aimed at enhancing the value of Korea's derivatives market to global institutions. The Futures Industry Association (FIA) hosts this event every March, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, attended by over 2,000 high-level officials from global exchanges, regulatory agencies, and the industry.
/jlne.ws/4kZwyrs
| | | | | | Regulation & Enforcement | | | Canary Capital continues flurry of US crypto ETF filings with Sui proposal
Suzanne McGee - Reuters
Canary Capital Group, a digital assets investment firm, said on Monday that it is seeking the green light from regulators to launch an exchange-traded fund tied to the spot price of Sui, a cryptocurrency associated with Sui Network, a blockchain service provider. That brings Canary's list of cryptocurrency filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to six, and again extends the roster of new ETF filings on a growing array of coins seeking regulatory approval submitted since the election of President Donald Trump last November.
/jlne.ws/41Bm3lr
SEC could axe proposed Biden-era crypto custody rule, says acting chief; Acting SEC chair Mark Uyeda said he's asked his staff to look at possibly withdrawing a proposed crypto custody rule for investment advisers.
Jesse Coghlan - CoinTelegraph
The US Securities and Exchange Commission could change or scrap a rule proposed under the Biden administration that would tighten crypto custody standards for investment advisers, according to the agency's acting chair, Mark Uyeda. In prepared remarks to an investment industry conference in San Diego on March 17, Uyeda said the rule proposed in February 2023 had seen commenters express "significant concern" over its "broad scope."
/jlne.ws/4izageB
IRS Retreats From Some Audits as Agency Slashes Workforce; Officials put faith in shift to technology, but others see dangers in cutting thousands of jobs
Richard Rubin and Ashlea Ebeling - The Wall Street Journal
The Trump administration's rapid shrinking of the Internal Revenue Service is ending some large audits and putting others in limbo. That is the early fallout of a retreat from stepped-up tax enforcement that could dent compliance and cost the government tens of billions of dollars in revenue. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hasn't detailed his plans for the IRS, its employees and operations. But a new direction is clear. Tough talk about pursuing tax dodging by corporations and high-income households is gone, and the administration is leaning more on technology for taxpayer service and enforcement. That would reverse the recent IRS push to put more people on telephone lines, in walk-in centers and on the front lines of audits and collections.
/jlne.ws/43R2rMO
SEC to Prioritize Review of Mutual Fund ETF Applications
Lydia Beyoud - Bloomberg
Acting Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mark Uyeda wants the regulator to move faster in reviewing applications to launch novel exchange-traded funds like the one filed by Dimensional Fund Advisors. "More than two years have passed since the most recent set of exemptive applications for ETF share class relief was filed," Uyeda said Monday in prepared remarks at an Investment Company Institute event in San Diego.
/jlne.ws/4iAr8l2
| | | | | | Technology | | | QuantHouse partners with Cboe Global Markets
Clelia Frondaroli - Asset Servicing Times
Iress's QuantHouse division has partnered with Cboe Global Markets to increase its US equity market data solution.
The market data will be offered through Cboe One Feed, which the company says will provide users with a high quality and cost effective market view of Cboe's US equity exchanges. The solution will now be available to all QuantHouse clients, following the partnership.
/jlne.ws/3Y1XVaz
| | | | | | Strategy | | | Silent Sell-Off: The 10% Drop Without Panic
Kai Zeng - tastylive
The S&P 500's latest pullback caused only a record-low VIX response. What does that say about volatility and market sentiment?
/jlne.ws/3RhrgtP
4 charts that show Wall Street's shaky start to 2025 - and how global markets are catching fire
Theron Mohamed and Huileng Tan - MarketWatch
Investors have dumped US stocks in favor of haven assets such as gold and silver.
It appears investors were wrong about US President Donald Trump's second term in office.
Instead of the Trump trade boosting markets, his fast-changing economic and trade policies have sent US stock markets tanking since the January inauguration.
/jlne.ws/4bK59py
| | | | | | Miscellaneous | | | European ETF industry salaries surge as managers fight for talent; Capital markets expertise is particularly in demand, observers say
Theo Andrew - Financial Times
The race to hire talent within the increasingly competitive exchange traded fund market is causing salaries to "bloom" across the sector, experts have said. Asset managers in Europe have piled into the market over the past couple of years in a bid to capitalise on client interest.
/jlne.ws/4iY8QtU
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| | | Jeff Bergstrom
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