Traders work in the S&P options pit at the Cboe Global Markets exchange in Chicago, Illinois, US, on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025. Christopher Dilts | Bloomberg | Getty Images So much for the September seasonal doldrums. Options traders are kicking off the historically worst month for stocks by piling on bullish bets on a handful…
If Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh wanted to put the bond market on alert, he certainly got his wish Friday: odds of an interest-rate hike by the central bank in its September meeting jumped to nearly 60 percent after Warsh’s speech in Jackson Hole, compared to just 35 percent on Thursday, according to Fed funds…
Stock market bulls got some huge affirmation this week as the S&P 500 made all-time highs, options volumes set records, and shares of this year’s star IPO – SpaceX – stabilized and rallied despite its earnings report and the end of its first lockup period. On Friday, the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) fell to its…
Billboards in Times Square celebrate the SpaceX IPO debut at the Nasdaq on June 12th, 2026. Adam Jeffery | CNBC Good times for SpaceX are proving short-lived as Elon Musk’s intergalactic IPO is now giving fodder to bears who said the U.S. stock market wasn’t ready for a $2 trillion market-cap injection. Shares of the…
Buying dips and selling rips has been the name of the game in the S&P 500 all summer. Options action suggests that it can continue, with VIX at recent lows and a slowdown in the wild speculative call-buying in tech that was pulling the market quickly in both directions. To an extent, that’s just the…
The S&P 500 has staged an impressive recovery, rallying more than 17% off its March lows on a combination of tariff relief optimism, resilient earnings and a powerful rebound in semiconductors. It is a move that has rewarded patience. It is also one that has quietly made hedging both more affordable and more strategically sensible….
A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., April 23, 2026. Jeenah Moon | Reuters Something interesting is happening in the options market. The S&P 500 touched record highs Thursday morning, but the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) remained stuck near 20 and is up from…
New innovation in the exchange-traded fund industry could come at a cost to investors during extreme conditions. According to MFS Investment Management’s Jamie Harrison, ETFs involved in increasingly complex derivatives and less transparent markets may be in uncharted territory when it comes to violent downturns. “Those would be something that you’d want to keep an…
BlackRock is applying hedge fund strategies to its exchange-traded fund business. Jeffrey Rosenberg, the firm’s senior portfolio manager on the systemic fixed income team, has a leading role in the firm’s liquid alternatives ETFs — which use a long-short strategy in ETF wrappers. He contends the strategy provides valuable diversification amid the recent breakdown in…
Precious metals are jumping to records. The U.S dollar is dropping. Stocks are choppy. Monday is all about the “Sell America” trade after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s bombshell announcement that he’s under criminal investigation — which market participants see as a sign of President Donald Trump‘s interest in stripping away the central bank’s political…
