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Know What's Happening in Options & Derivatives
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Every morning
Weekly
Tuesday recap
Bullish traders bought 2,000 USO March 20 84‑call contracts on Feb 26, just before the Strait of Hormuz was effectively shut after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. The closure halted roughly 20 % of global seaborne oil, sending Brent up 13 % to over $82 and WTI to a six‑month high, which propelled USO to $93.68 and generated a 221 % return on the calls. The trade illustrates how options leverage can magnify returns when geopolitical shocks align with a directional thesis. However, the same leverage can produce rapid losses if markets move opposite.
Similar to what we saw pre-market yesterday. Spot VIX (from SPX option chain) way north of the directly tradeable VX futures. Backwardation of the futures is not a good look, but I expect spot VIX to drop once the bell...
The VIX curve just flipped into backwardation. The MAR/APR spread hit -2.35. What does that mean? In contango (normal), you PAY to hold vol exposure every day. In backwardation, the market PAYS YOU to hold it. Panicking hedgers are transferring their risk premium directly...
Bloomberg has upgraded its real‑time news feeds by introducing tickerised, machine‑readable streams that can be customized by instrument, company or macro theme. The new service embeds proprietary sentiment models and granular metadata, delivering actionable signals directly into trading and risk‑management...
Bond Volatility winners $TW $MKTX also always a good market hedge / indicator of trouble coming
Vol gods very angry this morning. That means that $SVIX is being smashed to a level that gets it on the watch list. But it could be the first of a cluster (see March/April of last year), so be careful...
Nasdaq has submitted an SEC filing to list Outcome Related Options, binary contracts priced between one cent and one dollar that let traders bet on yes‑no outcomes. The first products would track the Nasdaq 100 and its micro version, offering all‑or‑nothing...
Embedded issue with markets now is whether volatility remains sticky to upside and destroys the crowded and complacent short vol trade which has been going on for years
Implied vol is well ahead of historical vol. Is the latter about to catch up? https://t.co/n7Ii78S3oL
Defiance ETFs announced the launch of DRNL, a 2x daily leveraged exchange‑traded fund that tracks the BITA Pure Drone and Aerial Automation Index. The ETF aims to deliver twice the daily percentage change of companies involved in drone manufacturing, software,...
Quasi SKlarew box suggests minimum downside of 5000 for GC. note perfect 120 "u turn" at the top. https://t.co/wHdOR1RvDF
$BBY "Trade Idea 2: Buy the March 6 Expiry 62/63 Call Spread (80 cents) and sell the March 6 Expiry 56 Put for free." puts expire, sell call spread near $1.00 or on any weakness in stock price
The U.S. dollar is strengthening across major G10 pairs as the Middle East conflict fuels risk aversion, pushing the euro, yen, and sterling lower. Emerging market currencies such as the peso, yuan and real also slide, while equity markets suffer...
$MDB "Trade Idea 2: Buy the March 6 Expiry 330/342.50 Call Spread ($7.40) and sell the March 6 Expiry 275 Put for a 20 cent credit." call spread a bust, will need to roll puts down and out.
Even if you're not an active single name options market participant, ignoring wholesale the signals & pricing in those markets can be tantamount to ignoring fundamental developments.
BlackRock's iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Swap UCITS ETF launched in London on 23 February 2026, ticker ESWP, expanding its synthetic ETF suite. The fund tracks the MSCI Emerging Markets Index via unfunded total‑return swaps, offering a 0.14% TER, 4 basis...
An interesting study for someone good with that kind of thing... Chart $CBOE relative strength breakouts vs. the market as an inflection point to market trends Seems CBOE showing rel. strength tends to always precede market weakness as options volumes surge
🚨 LATEST A whale has just opened a $40M $BTC short position with 40x leverage. Liquidation Price: $72,322 https://t.co/wvdP3TdmWO
Tidan Capital has appointed Laurent Keller as Senior Portfolio Manager, bolstering its volatility and options arbitrage platform. Keller brings over a decade of quantitative experience in equity volatility relative‑value, dispersion and correlation strategies from a large Swiss institutional investor. He...
Escalating U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran triggered risk-off sentiment, driving S&P 500 futures down over 1%. https://t.co/NbHGasOhbi
Single Stocks are expected to be more volatile than the S&P 500 by the largest margin since October 2008. 👀 https://t.co/DChNaXPkiW
White sugar prices barely moved in May 2026, closing at $407.7/tonne, as futures steadied above $400 after a five‑year low. Despite the tactical bounce, surplus projections for 2025/26 and 2026/27 dominate market sentiment, limiting upside. Brazil’s modest output dip and...
"1-month 25 delta skew reached its highest level since late 2021, reflecting elevated anxiety" -Captain Craig @t1alpha https://t.co/6wFr4T9ewz
Good morning, Mostly Deep Red Arrows around the World as Geopolitical tensions spread thru 9 Countries. $spx futures -120 Looks like we will be right around big important range area. $spy $675ish https://t.co/S9yXkXPEy9
Amplify CWP International Enhanced Div Inc ETF (IDVO) employs an active, ex‑US covered‑call strategy that leans heavily into cyclical sectors, aiming to monetize heightened market volatility. The author sees recent post‑Iran geopolitical turbulence as a catalyst to accumulate IDVO, hoping...
I'll be on with @MariaBartiromo tomorrow am- 7:10 EST on @FoxBusiness discussing the surge in cross-asset volatility given the Iran Strike & what it means for markets
Naz barely made OD up bar while SP & Rus failed...no surprise that the majority of the futures markets made WR7s...(widest range of the last 7 days.) DAX gave a purse trend day down. https://t.co/M06KxsRquT
On February 11, 2026 ISDA and the Association of Securities and Intermediaries in Financial Markets (ASIFMA) sent a joint letter to the Reserve Bank of India requesting clarification on the RBI’s 2025 Master Direction for Rupee Interest Rate Derivatives. The...
The most painful thing for the market right now isn't $BTC dropping to $50k. Market is largely hedged and ready for that. The most painful path forward is a rally to $100k or so that leaves everyone sitting in...
This is what trading against the crowd using behavior and sorta simple TA looks like I'd add to this the low in oil came as Silver was topping out too but more importantly is you can't predict the future vs waiting...
On February 17, 2026 the OCC adjusted SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited Company options, creating the SMX1 contract. Each SMX1 contract now delivers 20 SMX ordinary shares and a cash‑in‑lieu payment of $16.48, calculated using a $34.338299 per‑share price. The cash portion...
I disclosed to everyone during my TikTok live last night that I had opened service now positions last week Now you can see the proof yourself via the signal given to TBL in Feb I told everyone why I love the...
Volatility? Good. Clean structure? Even better. 🔥 NQ gave us: ⚡ Price Discovery Continuation ⚡ VWAP Bounce ⚡ IB High Fade ⚡ Madonna (first IB touch fade… textbook) When you read balance vs imbalance correctly, the market gets simple. Grab the free guide 🌊 #vwaptrading #nqfutures #tradingeducation
The Options Clearing Corporation’s Governance and Nominating Committee has put forward two candidates—Joseph C. Lewis of Jefferies LLC and Joshua Woods of Citadel Securities—for Class I Member Director seats. The election will occur at the April 22, 2026 annual stockholders meeting, with each...
Lawrence G. McMillan details a rolling‑up options strategy applied to the Silver ETF (SLV), where deep‑in‑the‑money calls were sold for credit and replaced with at‑the‑money calls. Each roll generated cash, creating a psychological edge and limiting downside to the premium...
Natural gas futures slipped back toward $3 per MMBtu after early gains, as technical resistance halted the rally. The NYMEX April contract was rejected at $3.03, signaling market caution. Simultaneously, escalating Iranian attacks disrupted global LNG flows, adding geopolitical pressure....
Lawrence G. McMillan hosted a deep‑dive webinar on volatility derivatives, moving beyond the basic VIX definition to explore real‑world behavior of VIX futures, term structure, and hedged spreads. The session covered practical tactics such as "The Big (Volatility) Short" and...
Bullish traders bought 2,500 RTX April 17 220 call contracts at $1.80 on Feb 25, just days before a massive U.S.–Israel strike on Iran. The operation, called Operation Epic Fury, sparked a surge in demand for RTX’s SM‑3, SM‑6 and Tomahawk missiles, lifting...
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Elevated volatility as oil spikes and heavy Treasury settlements. S&P gamma at 6800; VIX resists ~20. Risk: higher oil, weaker productivity → yields up. Trade: buy SPX dips near 6800. — Viktor Kopylov, PhD, CFA More insights: t.me/si14Kopylov
The Middle East may still be in turmoil, but peace has returned to the VIX complex. https://t.co/rNDEVVnd18
Back Shorting SPY Calls @thestreetpro With S&P cash -9 handles (a big rally from the lows of -70 handles) I am back shorting (SPY) calls. By Doug Kass Mar 2, 2026 11:21 AM EST @guyadami @dougkass
Nvidia (NVDA) with $335M of June $150 ITM calls bought as big March 160 position adjusts
And here's what it looks like using @CBOE term structure. Still worried about the next week. https://t.co/fiamATKWkr
The rise of 0DTE options reshaped index trading — and that evolution is now extending to single stocks. Join us today at 1pm ET as we go live with Mat Cashman of the OCC to break down this structural shift:...
Spot $VIX sitting above the entire $VX futures term structure. This is not normal (duh). Either spot comes down or futures need to move higher. Pick one and play it accordingly. https://t.co/UHEiLblhn0
$SHLD hit 80 this morning, last week's ETF buy...and another options flow signal that a strike on Iran was imminent https://t.co/X4FCStX2RJ
Non-stop selling of the belly since futures opened last night with 5s easing up on the curve after a historic run. https://t.co/7GuCuTfHeW
Mostly red arrows around the world as weekend Middle East events have the “war time trade” in motion, with silver/gold/oil higher and $SPX futures -70. Key is whether $SPX holds 6780–6790 to keep the upper range intact, or if it...
"it's hard to hedge a war with a 0DTE contract, which is why we are seeing this positioning expressed further out on the curve" -Captain Craig @t1alpha
