| | | | | | | February 27, 2025 | | | | | Jeff Bergstrom
Editor
John Lothian News | |
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| | | | Observations & Insight | | | CME Group, which bills itself as the world's leading derivatives marketplace, shattered records on February 25, 2025 with an unprecedented single-day trading volume of 67,124,571 contracts. This milestone surpassed the previous record set in March 2023 by nearly a million contracts. The surge was primarily driven by exceptional activity in the interest rate and U.S. Treasury markets, with new daily volume records established across multiple products. Notably, interest rate futures and options saw 50.9 million contracts traded, while U.S. Treasury futures and options reached 40.7 million contracts. Specific Treasury products, including 2-Year, Ultra 10-Year, and U.S. Treasury Bond futures, also hit new highs, underscoring the intense market activity and CME Group's pivotal role in global financial markets.
This newsletter has reported many CME volume records over the years, including the first time Globex traded more than one million contracts. We also reported the first time the E-Mini S&P futures traded over one million contracts. In both cases, we beat the CME in reporting their records, though we had a little inside help and had the email ready to go as soon as 3:15 p.m. ticked and the final Globex volume number printed on the Globex terminal.
Early Bird pricing for the Options Industry Conference ends on March 14, 2025, at 5 p.m. Central Time. This three-day event unites top industry professionals, influential speakers, and high-quality content, offering a unique opportunity to connect, learn, and engage. Sign up by clicking on the skyscraper ad in the newsletter. ~JJL
| | | | | | Lead Stories | | | India's Volatility Index Shows Traders Not Panicking
Savio Shetty - Bloomberg
Good morning, this is Savio Shetty, an equities reporter in Mumbai. Indian stocks look set for a subdued start this morning, as investors return from Wednesday's holiday to a cautious mood in Asian markets. Concerns stem from Donald Trump's latest tariff announcements and Nvidia Corp.'s underwhelming earnings report. Financial stocks will be watched after the central bank rolled back additional risk weights on loans to better-rated non-banking financial companies.
/jlne.ws/41x2gVj
Bitcoin ETFs Are Hit by a Record $1 Billion Outflow in One Day; Cohort sees six days of outflows, longest stretch since June; Investors added nearly $7 billion combined to QQQ, SPY
Isabelle Lee - Bloomberg
Investors yanked more than $1 billion from spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds Tuesday, marking the biggest one-day outflow since the cohort's debut last January. Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (ticker FBTC) posted the steepest outflows among these funds, followed by the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT), according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That's as Bitcoin's price has been faltering, with investors shunning riskier assets in the face of uncertainty. As a group, the Bitcoin funds shed roughly $2.1 billion over six consecutive days - the longest stretch of outflows since last June.
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Big Money Flocks Back to a Levered Trade That Went Bust in 2008
Lu Wang and Yiqin Shen - Bloomberg
A diversified investment strategy that seeks to juice returns through leverage is finding new love among big money managers - more than a decade after it blew up during the 2008 financial crisis. The approach, widely known as "portable alpha," uses derivatives to track returns of long-only indexes and then invests the excess cash in trades beloved by hedge funds, including the likes of trend following or market-neutral equity strategies.
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| | | | | | Exchanges | | | CME Group Sets New Daily Volume Record of 67.1 Million Contracts, Driven by Interest Rate and U.S. Treasury Markets
CME Group
CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today reported it reached a new, single-day volume record of 67,124,571 contracts traded on February 25. This surpasses the previous record of 66,256,756 contracts set on March 13, 2023.
/jlne.ws/4kiIi89
Crypto Trading Platform BitMEX Is Looking for a Buyer: Sources; BitMEX appointed boutique investment bank Broadhaven late last year to assist with the sales process, according to sources.
Ian Allison - CoinDesk
BitMEX, the cryptocurrency exchange and derivatives trading platform co-founded in 2014 by Arthur Hayes, is looking for a buyer, according to two people with knowledge of the plans.
The storied exchange, which arguably made perpetual futures the most popular product among leverage-hungry crypto traders, appointed boutique investment bank Broadhaven Capital Partners late last year to assist with the sales process, the people said.
/jlne.ws/3XnBg8p
HKEX Welcomes Listing Of New Flagship ETF
HKEX via Mondovisione
HKE welcomed the listing of the Invesco QQQ Trust, the world's largest Nasdaq-100 Index ETF. HKEX Head of Equities Product Development, Brian Roberts, said: "We are delighted to welcome today's listing of the Invesco QQQ ETF on HKEX, the first listing of this flagship ETF outside North America, marking a significant milestone for our market. This development not only underscores HKEX's position as Asia's premier ETF marketplace, but also reinforces Hong Kong's role as a leading international financial hub."
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HKEX Profit, Revenue Hit Quarterly Highs; Fourth-quarter net profit climbed around 46% on year
Kimberley Kao - The Wall Street Journal
Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing's net profit and revenue jumped to new quarterly records as improved market sentiment boosted trading and listing activity in the Asian financial hub, boding well for the exchange operator's prospects in 2025. bThe stock-exchange operator said Thursday that net profit reached a fourth-quarter high of 3.78 billion Hong Kong dollars, equivalent to US$486.2 million, climbing around 46% from a year earlier. Revenue and other income increased 31% to HK$6.38 billion-a new quarterly record-as trading and clearing fees rose across the cash, derivatives and commodities markets, the company said.
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Nasdaq Announces Mid-Month Open Short Interest Positions in Nasdaq Stocks as of Settlement Date February 14, 2025
Nasdaq
At the end of the settlement date of February 14, 2025, short interest in 3,121 Nasdaq Global MarketSM securities totaled 12,649,030,702 shares compared with 12,170,722,591 shares in 3,109 Global Market issues reported for the prior settlement date of January 31, 2025. The mid-February short interest represents 2.64 days compared with 2.69 days for the prior reporting period.
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| | | | | | Technology | | | MEMX Technology Helps Improve Venue Performance
Shanny Basar - Traders Magazine
Blue Ocean ATS, which trades US stocks overnight, and the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE) for companies committed to long-term value creation, both migrated to MEMX technology in 2024 in order to improve performance of their venues and make them more scalable.
Blue Ocean ATS clients can trade US National Market System stocks between 8pm ET and 4am ET from Sunday to Thursday, which allows Asian investors to buy and sell US stocks during their trading day. The ATS had launched in October 2021 and chief executive and president Brian Hyndman told Markets Media that they selected MEMX technology as their platform given that it provides the capacity to process 35 billion messages.
/jlne.ws/4h57jkq
| | | | | | Strategy | | | Bitcoin traders are eyeing another big drop after slipping into a bear market
Jennifer Sor - Business Insider
Crypto traders are eyeing the possibility that bitcoin's sell-off worsens after the token entered a technical bear market this week.
Bitcoin options show open interest for put options with a strike price of $70,000 rose to the second-highest level among all contracts set to expire this Friday, according to Deribit data cited by Bloomberg.
If bitcoin were to fall to that level, it would mark another 18% drop from current levels and 35% from its all-time-high above $109,000 in January.
/jlne.ws/4ifTyAl
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| | | Jeff Bergstrom
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