| | Jeff Bergstrom
Editor
John Lothian News | |
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June 18, 2025
Observations & Insight Cboe Global Markets' latest white paper, "Policy Recommendations to Unlock Retail Participation in Europe's Options Markets," argues that vibrant listed equity options-especially single-stock options-can empower retail investors and strengthen Europe's financial ecosystem by enhancing liquidity and risk management. While Europe's options markets have lagged behind the US due to fragmented infrastructure, high costs, and low retail engagement, Cboe sees a turning point as the EU's Savings and Investments Union aims to mobilize EUR10 trillion in retail savings. Drawing on the US model, Cboe emphasizes the importance of competitive market structures, efficient post-trade infrastructure, and robust investor education, supported by its CEDX platform and The Options Institute. Key policy recommendations include enabling multi-exchange trading, refining suitability and disclosure standards, and revising capital requirements to attract liquidity providers. With the proper regulatory support, Cboe believes Europe can build a more inclusive, dynamic, and competitive options market. ~JJL Lead Stories Bitcoin Options Show Traders Hedging Against a Dip to $100,000
Sidhartha Shukla - Bloomberg Bitcoin options show traders are hedging against a price pullback to the $100,000 price level with geopolitical and economic uncertainty rising across global financial markets.
The put-to-call volume ratio on the crypto derivatives exchange Deribit surged to 2.17 over the past 24 hours, reflecting a strong tilt toward protective bets. Put options, which offer downside insurance by giving the holder of the contract the right to sell at a certain price, saw outsized demand, particularly in short-dated contracts. For options expiring June 20, open interest in puts struck at $100,000 now tops the board, with a put-to-call ratio of 1.16, underscoring concern about a near-term price fall.
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Oil Options More Bullish Than After Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
Yongchang Chin - Bloomberg Oil options are now more bullish than after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, showing a global market that's on edge as Israel and Iran trade blows, and speculation mounts that the US may join the attack.
The premium of bullish Brent calls - which profit when prices rise - was at the widest relative to the opposite puts in data going back to 2013, as of Tuesday's close. A measure of implied volatility has also surged, as higher-than-usual volumes of options contracts changed hands in recent days.
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Israeli Shekel's Calm Under Threat as Options Signal Turmoil
Galit Altstein and Srinivasan Sivabalan - Bloomberg Options traders are bracing for the Israeli shekel to experience wilder moves than at any time since the start of the Gaza war in 2023 - a hedge against any breakdown in the resilience it's so far shown against the nation's multiple ongoing conflicts.
Implied volatility, a bet on currency turbulence reflected in one-month derivatives, jumped to the highest since March 2023 this week, surpassing levels seen when Hamas attacked Israel in October that year and triggered a multi-front conflict. That's left the shekel as the most volatile currency in the world, excluding the Russian ruble, according to Bloomberg rankings.
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What needs to happen for options trading to grow in Europe?; Panelists at IDX discuss the European equity options market, and what changes need to be made to increase growth.
Nicole Garcia Merida - SmartBrief Back in 2009, the European and US options markets were a similar size - but the US market is now 30 times the size of the Europe's. So what is it that the US has done that Europe hasn't?
Experts at the International Derivatives Expo addressed this question and more during a panel discussion focused on The Future of Options in Europe. Panelists discussed the differences between the two, and what has kept the European market from growing at the same rate as it has across the pond.
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Policy Recommendations to Unlock Retail Participation in Europe's Options Markets
Cboe In a new white paper, Cboe examines the pivotal role listed equity options can play in empowering retail investors and strengthening Europe's financial ecosystem, while also outlining key policy measures to support market growth. We believe that a vibrant options market-particularly for single-stock options, which offer a wide range of use cases including the hedging of equity exposures-can significantly enhance liquidity in related instruments and contribute to the overall health and resilience of European capital markets.
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Wall Street leans on stock traders to cushion dealmaking slowdown; Volatility is keeping market-making desks active at a time when mergers and issuance have slowed
Martin Arnold, Kate Duguid and Akila Quinio - Financial Times Wall Street executives are counting on their traders to offset tepid deal fees this quarter, after Donald Trump's trade war threats made markets gyrate. Senior bankers say the market swings prompted by the US president's "liberation day" declaration of higher tariffs led to a flurry of buying and selling by investors, even as corporate boardrooms put deals on ice. "Trading continues to be helped by volatility, with equity trading likely to continue to outperform fixed-income trading," said Mike Mayo, a banking industry analyst at Wells Fargo. "Investment banking is likely to decline year-over-year given continued uncertainty around policy."
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Wall Street Fears Hawkish Fed Will Trigger Stock Market Selloff
Jess Menton - Bloomberg Not much seems to faze the stock market these days even as risks abound, from war in the Middle East, to trade tensions, to slowing growth. But Wall Street's biggest fear arrives today when the Federal Reserve meeting ends and Chair Jerome Powell explains the central bank's outlook.
There's pretty much no expectation that the Fed will reduce interest rates at this meeting after holding steady in the past three instances. But between the so-called dot plot, which outlines where central bankers think the fed funds rate is headed, and Powell's press conference after the meeting, traders expect to have a much clearer idea of what they're thinking.
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Exchanges Cboe and Euronext push to harmonise equity options specs; Standardisation of expiry times and dates will boost European markets, exchange execs say
Lukas Becker - Risk.net Euronext and Cboe have expressed a willingness to collaborate on harmonising European single stock option product specifications in a bid to compete with US markets. European listed equity options volume lags significantly behind the US. This is partly due to market fragmentation, which results in single stock contracts being listed on multiple exchanges with varying expiry dates and times, leading
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ABN Amro Clearing joinsâEUR¯CboeâEUR¯Clear Europe's SFT Clearing service; The news follows the launch back in March 2025, wherein Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking acted as a principal lender against JP Morgan as a borrower.
Jonathan Watkins - The Trade ABN Amro Clearing has become an active participant of Cboe Clear Europe's Securities Financing Transactions (SFT) clearing service, acting in the capacity of borrower. CboeâEUR¯Clear Europe launched the clearing service in March 2025, wherein Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking acted as a principal lender against JP Morgan as a borrower, as part of the first trades cleared through the new service.
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WFE Releases Guidance on Transition to T+1 Settlement
WFE Press Release via Traders Magazine The World Federation of Exchanges (WFE), the global industry association for exchanges and central counterparties (CCPs), has published industry-wide guidance on the complex mix of operational, regulatory, and strategic considerations for shortening securities settlement cycles. The paper draws on lessons learned from recent transitions in markets including India, the United States, Canada, and Latin America, and offers a roadmap for jurisdictions seeking to move safely and efficiently from T+2 to T+1 settlement.
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FIA's Lukken Urges Industry to Focus on Infrastructure, Collateral, and Regulation
Anna Lyudvig - Traders Magazine Speaking at the opening of the International Derivatives Expo (IDX) in London on June 17, Walt Lukken, President and CEO of the Futures Industry Association (FIA), outlined a forward-looking agenda for the global derivatives industry, centered on three strategic imperatives: standardising infrastructure, modernising collateral management, and streamlining regulation.
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Technology Trading Technologies Readies Fixed Income Launch in 2026
Editorial Staff - Traders Magazine Trading Technologies is branching out beyond its roots in futures and options on futures. The SaaS provider to the capital markets industry has moved, or plans to move, into FX, US options, and fixed income. Traders Magazine caught up with Chris Heffernan, EVP Managing Director, Fixed Income at Trading Technologies, at last week's Fixed Income Leaders Summit in Washington, DC, to learn more about TT's plans in fixed income.
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FIA Tech launches new data service for IRS 871(m) for exchange traded derivatives
FIA Tech FIA Tech, a leading technology provider in the futures industry, announced that it has launched a new data service to meet the demands of customers trading futures and options for an accurate, comprehensive data solution designed to assist firms in complying with the tax regulation 871(m). In September 2015, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") and the U.S. Treasury Department released final regulations under Section 871(m) of the Internal Revenue Code which established regulations regarding the withholding of "dividend equivalent payments" on derivatives that reference U.S. equity securities. For market participants trading in these derivative products, failure to accurately determine products subject to this withholding status as required by the 871(m) regulations may lead to fines, increased scrutiny from regulatory authorities, and costly measures to rectify operational workflows.
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Strategy Investors Are Wildly Bullish on Oil Prices. Follow the Skew.
Steven M. Sears - Barron's Missile-lobbing between Israel and Iran has created rarely seen bullish conditions in the oil market.
The "skew" of three-month call options on West Texas Intermediate crude futures contracts-a measure of the difference between the implied volatility of bullish calls and bearish put options -is hovering around the highest level in more than 25 years, according to Goldman Sachs.
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This oil gauge signals how nervous investors are about Trump's warning to Iran; The CBOE Crude-Oil ETF Volatility Index is headed for its highest close in three years
Myra P. Saefong - MarketWatch U.S. and global benchmark oil prices have seen their share of big moves since Israel launched attacks on Iran late last week, but there's one indicator that helps put into perspective just how worried investors have become about the potential scope of the conflict.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday called for Iran's "unconditional surrender" as the Israel-Iran conflict deepened. He also urged residents to evacuate Tehran, a city of nearly 10 million, raising questions about if the U.S. might take steps to deepen its involvement in the conflict.
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Is the VIX Too Low Again?
Andrew Hecht - Barchart (via The Globe and Mail) I asked if the VIX was still too low in a late October 2024 Barchart article. After rising to the 65.72 level on August 5, 2024, the VIX fell below the 19 level when I concluded:
VIXY could be a valuable tool over the coming weeks as the current uncertainty remains bullish for the VIX and could cause the implied volatility of put and call options on S&P 500 stocks to soar. At the 20 level, the VIX could still be too low in the current environment.
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'VIXperation' day may spell trouble for stocks
Jamie Chisholm - MarketWatch Wednesday's session on Wall Street will see the expiration of monthly Cboe Volatility index futures and options.
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Miscellaneous Ken Griffin on Trump, Harvard and Why Novice Investors Won't Beat the Pros; The founder of $66 billion hedge fund Citadel is making waves in Miami, the nucleus of the new "Wall Street South."
Sonali Basak - Bloomberg In the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic, about 50 staffers from Citadel Securities assembled in an empty ballroom at a Palm Beach, Florida, resort so they could keep trading together while the rest of the world shut down. Holed up in luxury with their families and basically no one else, they "created perhaps the first bubble in America," says Citadel founder and billionaire investor Ken Griffin, 56. His team has since vacated the Four Seasons but not the broader Miami region, where in 2022 he relocated the market-making firm along with his $66 billion hedge fund-also called Citadel-quickly establishing himself as the de facto leader of the new "Wall Street South." In a wide-ranging interview for the Bloomberg Originals show Bullish, the major GOP donor shared his views on President Donald Trump; his alma mater, Harvard University; and his Florida homecoming. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
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****** Sonali Basak got a great opportunity to interview Ken Griffin and he didn't disappoint.~JJL | | | | JLN Options is sponsored by: | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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