| | | | | | | March 06, 2025 | | | | | Jeff Bergstrom
Editor
John Lothian News | |
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| | | | Observations & Insight | | | The FIA released its 2025 derivatives industry survey, conducted by Crisil Coalition Greenwich, that revealed key insights into market sentiment and future trends. A majority of respondents anticipate increased trading activity in 2025, driven primarily by political instability and geopolitical conflict, rather than traditional economic fundamentals. In the U.S., the threat of tariffs and a more business-friendly regulatory environment were highlighted as significant factors influencing trading activity. The survey identified commodities as the asset class with the greatest growth potential, followed by interest rates and credit. Geographically, India and the Middle East were seen as regions with high growth prospects outside of Europe and North America. Walt Lukken, FIA's president and CEO, noted that political uncertainty and global conflicts are reshaping the derivatives markets as participants seek to manage risks.
The survey also explored market structure issues, including the central clearing mandate for U.S. Treasury securities, which many firms view as an opportunity for competition among clearinghouses. Respondents emphasized attributes like cross-margining and margin methodology when selecting clearinghouses. Regarding vertical integration in derivatives markets-where exchanges combine roles with brokers-opinions were mixed, with half viewing it negatively due to potential conflicts of interest. The survey further examined prediction markets, with most respondents dismissing their relevance to conventional futures markets. On technology trends, generative AI emerged as the most impactful innovation for trading and clearing workflows, surpassing tokenization in collateral management. The survey drew responses from more than 260 participants across North America, Europe, and other regions, representing clearing firms, brokers, asset managers, exchanges, and technology providers.
Cboe reported record-breaking trading volumes for February 2025, with U.S. options reaching an all-time high ADV of 18 million contracts across its four exchanges. Key drivers included a record 13.6 million ADV in multiply-listed options and 3.5 million SPX options ADV, the highest on record. February 21 saw multiple single-day records, including 25.7 million total U.S. options contracts and 4.7 million SPX options contracts traded. In futures, the largest-ever IBIG block trade of 2,200 contracts ($309 million notional) occurred on February 27, pushing open interest past $479 million notional. Meanwhile, Cboe BIDS Europe set monthly records, with EUR15.4 billion in total notional traded and EUR771.3 million ADV. Full details are available in Cboe's press release.
The Derivatives Market Institute for Standards (DMIST) released its 2024 annual report, highlighting significant accomplishments aimed at improving operational efficiency and risk reduction in the exchange-traded derivatives industry. Key achievements included the development of the "30-30-30" standard implementation guide, which has led to trade-date allocation completion rates of 95-97%, even during increased market volumes, mitigating systemic risks. DMIST also published the average pricing standard in June 2024, with an implementation guide expected in 2025, enabling brokers and clearinghouses to adopt a global framework for pricing trades efficiently. Additionally, DMIST established a planning/strategy working group to address emerging trends like tokenization and U.S. Treasury clearing while receiving its first proposals from non-members, including standards for position transfers and self-match prevention. These efforts reflect DMIST's commitment to fostering collaboration among brokers, exchanges, clearinghouses, and technology providers to enhance market resilience and operational consistency. ~JJL
| | | | | | Lead Stories | | | Investors question 'Trump put' as tariffs rattle stock markets
Davide Barbuscia and Carolina Mandl - Reuters
Investors are recalibrating how to play U.S. President Donald Trump's whipsawing policy changes, weighing that a so-called "Trump put" supporting stock market prices may be fading and that his administration is more keenly focused on the debt markets.
Investors had bet strongly that Trump's agenda to lower taxes and usher in deregulation would support risk assets in a similar way to his first term when he frequently touted the stock market's performance.
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Options Traders Pile Into Bearish Bets On Popular ETF
Krystal Hur - The Wall Street Journal
Despite the stock-market rally Wednesday, options traders piled into bets that a popular exchange-traded fund would fall. That extended a frenzied level of activity seen on Tuesday. About 7.9 million put options tied to the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust-known by its ticker SPY- changed hands on Tuesday, the third highest level on record, according to Susquehanna International Group's Chris Murphy.
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Wall Street Goes From Hope to Panic as Nasdaq 100 Nears a Correction
Ryan Vlastelica and Jess Menton - Bloomberg
Just two weeks ago, high-flying mega-tech stocks and their chipmaking cousins were powering the Nasdaq 100 Index to yet another record.
It was the 53rd all-time high for the tech-heavy benchmark since March 2023, when ChatGPT launched dreams of an artificial intelligence world. The ensuing rally added $13 trillion to the tech-heavy benchmark's valuation. And investor appetite seemed bottomless: Same-day bullish options exploded in popularity, and triple leveraged ETFs flooded the market.
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Traders' Euro Optimism Has a Time Limit, Options Market Shows; Options traders' bullishness extends to the coming weeks; They turn bearish over next two quarters amid tariff risk
George Lei - Bloomberg
Currency-options traders are signaling that the euro's bullish momentum may not last past the coming weeks amid the lingering threat of a deepening trade war.
The common currency has soared about 4% this week, for its biggest three-day advance in almost a decade, after Germany unveiled plans for hundreds of billions of euros for defense and infrastructure spending, jolting yields on the nation's government debt higher.
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FIA releases findings from derivatives industry survey
FIA
FIA today released the findings from a survey of brokers, trading firms, exchanges and other participants in the global derivatives markets. The survey, which was conducted in January by Crisil Coalition Greenwich on behalf of FIA, assessed industry sentiment on the outlook for trading activity at the global level and gathered views on the likely drivers for trading activity going forward. The survey also assessed industry sentiment on several current issues affecting market structure, including competition among clearinghouses in the US Treasury securities market, the growth of prediction markets, and the trend towards vertical integration.
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| | | | | | Exchanges | | | Cboe Global Markets Reports Trading Volume for February 2025
Cboe
Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe: CBOE), the world's leading derivatives and securities exchange network, today reported February monthly trading volume statistics across its global business lines.
The data sheet "Cboe Global Markets Monthly Volume & RPC/Net Revenue Capture Report" contains an overview of certain February trading statistics and market share by business segment, volume in select index products, and RPC/net capture, which is reported on a one-month lag, across business lines.
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BrokerTec Sets New Single-Day Volume Record With Over $1 Trillion Notional Traded
CME Group
CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced that its BrokerTec business reached a new single-day volume record of $1.05 trillion in average daily notional volume (ADNV) traded on March 3. Surpassing the ADNV of $909B for February 2025, this new all-time high was driven by a series of individual product records across the U.S. Treasuries, U.S. and EU Repo, and European Government Bond central limit order book (CLOB), request-for-quote (RFQ), and streaming platforms.
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Tradeweb Reports February 2025 Total Trading Volume of $50.3 Trillion and Average Daily Volume of $2.49 Trillion
Tradeweb
Tradeweb Markets Inc. (Nasdaq: TW), a leading, global operator of electronic marketplaces for rates, credit, equities and money markets, today reported total trading volume for the month of February 2025 of $50.3 trillion (tn)[1]. Average daily volume (ADV) for the month was $2.49tn, an increase of 33.1 percent (%) year-over-year (YoY). Excluding the impact of the ICD acquisition, which closed on August 1, 2024, total ADV for the month of February was up 18.2% YoY.
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MarketAxess Announces Trading Volume Statistics for February 2025
Stock Titan
MarketAxess Holdings (Nasdaq: MKTX) reported its February 2025 trading statistics, showing mixed performance across different segments. Total average daily volume (ADV) reached $43.4 billion, up 27% year-over-year and 11% from January 2025.
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ASX Group Monthly Activity Report - February 2025
ASX
In February 2025, total new capital quoted was $33.9 billion, compared to $2.5 billion in the previous corresponding period (pcp). The total quoted market capitalisation of entities de-listed was $1.8 billion compared to $1.8 billion in the pcp.
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Moscow Exchange announces results for the full year 2024
Moscow Exchange
Moscow Exchange (MOEX) today announces its financial results in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for the year ended 31 December 2024.
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Hong Kong capital markets wrap up 2024 on a high note: SFC Quarterly Report
SFC
A strong asset management sector and enhanced market connectivity amidst improving investor sentiment provided Hong Kong's capital markets with a strong finish to 2024, according to the Securities and Futures Commission's (SFC) Quarterly Report published today. On the asset management front, the exchange-traded fund (ETFs) market made further headway last year, as the average daily turnover for ETFs surged 35% year-on-year to $18.9 billion (US$2.4 billion), accounting for 14% of total stock market turnover (Note 1). They raked in net inflows of $22.8 billion (US$2.9 billion) for the year, while the number of ETFs increased 11% to 194 (Note 2).
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Miami International Holdings Participates in Ring the Bell for Gender Equality Campaign for International Womens Day
MIAX
Miami International Holdings, Inc. (MIH), a technology-driven leader in building and operating regulated financial markets across multiple asset classes, announced it ceremoniously rang the opening bell at its Princeton, N.J. headquarters on March 5, 2025, in honor of the World Federation of Exchanges' (WFE) "Ring the Bell for Gender Equality" campaign. The campaign aligns with International Women's Day on March 8, 2025.
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| | | | | | Regulation & Enforcement | | | Nevada Gaming Board Orders Kalshi to Shut Down Sports Contracts
Lydia Beyoud and Ira Boudway - Bloomberg
Nevada's gambling regulator is asking Kalshi Inc. to stop offering derivatives trading on professional and college sports to people in the state by March 14. The state is the first to challenge the rapid rise of sports-based "event contracts" offered by federally-regulated exchanges like Kalshi and Crypto.com, as well as unregulated platforms including Polymarket.
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***** This effort is likely to fail, given the federal jurisdiction of derivatives trading. The superiority of federal law over state law is called the Supremacy Clause. This principle is established in Article VI, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, which declares that the Constitution, federal laws, and treaties are the "supreme Law of the Land" and take precedence over any conflicting state laws or state constitutions. Former FIA President John Damgard was key to getting exclusive federal jurisdiction of listed derivatives trading in the Commodity Exchange Act that created the CFTC. However, this gambling issue is not going to go away, and ultimately Kalshi and other firms depending on their CFTC registration for protection will lose it, I predict.~JJL
| | | | | | Technology | | | Cboe Canada Completes Technology Migration
Cboe Global Markets
Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe: CBOE), the world's leading derivatives and securities exchange network, today announced it successfully migrated Cboe Canada's NEO-L, NEO-N, and NEO-D trading books (collectively, the NEO Trading Platform) to Cboe Titanium on March 3. Cboe Titanium is the new name of the technology platform powering Cboe's world-class exchange operations for trading equities, options, and futures across its markets globally.
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CQG to Provide Order Routing Infrastructure for all Robinhood Futures Trades
CQG
CQG, a leading global provider of high-performance technology solutions for market makers, traders, brokers, commercial hedgers and exchanges, and Robinhood Derivatives LLC ("Robinhood") (NASDAQ: HOOD), announced today that they have partnered to use CQG's professional-grade infrastructure to handle order routing for Robinhood Derivatives' futures customer orders. As of January 31, 2025, Robinhood has 25.5 million funded customers and assets under custody of $204 billion. CQG provides a broad range of technology solutions for financial market participants of all sizes, including many of the largest financial institutions, retail futures brokerage firms, hedge funds and active professional traders, as well as numerous exchanges.
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| | | | | | Moves | | | SGX Group Announces Management Changes In FX And Technology
SGX
Singapore Exchange (SGX Group) today announced changes in its FX and Technology management teams, aimed at strengthening its leadership and bolstering its capabilities for continued success and growth. Jean-Philippe Male (JP) will be appointed CEO of SGX FX, effective 1 April 2025. Previously CEO and Co-Founder of BidFX, a leading buyside FX OTC platform business acquired by SGX Group in 2020, JP was promoted to President of SGX FX in mid-2024, and a driving force behind the significant rise of the OTC FX business. In his new role, JP will be responsible for leading the SGX FX management team in expanding its contribution as a growth engine for the Group.
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| | | | | | Strategy | | | Some market signals aren't working like they used to. Here's the one to watch.; Extreme drop in an investor sentiment survey is not reflected in stocks' recent pullback
Jamie Chisholm - MarketWatch
A favorite aphorism of the late Art Cashin, Wall Street legend and UBS's long-serving director of floor operations at the NYSE, is that "no one rings a bell at the top of the market."
And of course, the same applies to the bottom. There was no clanging to be heard on that day in March 2009, when the S&P 500 hit a low of 666 during the height of the global financial crisis.
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