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U.S. equities extended their advance in August, with mega-cap technology names reclaiming leadership after two months of rotation toward smaller-cap and equal-weighted exposure.
Implied volatilities declined across asset classes last week on the back of strong Tech earnings and Chair Warsh’s comments at Jackson Hole. Learn more in this week's Macro Volatility Digest.
At 1/10th the size of SPX, XSP offers very similar notional size, weekly expirations, and PM-settlement to SPY, but with even more potential benefits.
Many trading strategies, such as covered-call or spread trading, involve options writing (selling), where the primary risks are market movement and volatility. But there's another risk if you happen to be writing options on dividend-paying equities like SPY ETFs: early assignment.
There are a number of different types of options contracts available on broad-based U.S. equity indexes. Some of the most actively traded products include options on SPY, SPX and XSPSM (Mini-SPX). They all track the S&P 500® and both SPY and XSP options have the same notional size, making them somewhat interchangeable. A key difference, however, is settlement style.
European equity trading volumes shifted from Closing Auctions toward Central Limit Order Books and Non-Displayed venues during July, with Cboe remaining the largest exchange and the biggest market share gainer month over month.
Total U.S. equities market Average Daily Volume (ADV) fell 25.43% month-over-month (down 3.41% year-over-year) to 17.42 billion shares traded in July. Off-exchange volume expanded to 50.1%, up 126 basis points month-over-month.
In July 2026, Cboe FX Spot Average Daily Volume (ADV) reached $56.8 billion, a 24.6% increase versus July 2025's ADV of $45.6 billion. Cboe SEF ADV topped $4.3 billion, representing a 46.5% increase from $2.9 billion in July 2025. The LD4 venue recorded $1.1 billion in notional traded on July 31, a new single-day high-water mark.
