Cboe Blogs

These are extraordinary times with great uncertainty for everyone. We hope that our Inside Volatility Newsletter provides you with useful insights and historical context to help you navigate this difficult period. On a personal note, we would like to express our gratitude to our amazing health care workers. These people are heroes. Period. End of story. They go to work and have no idea what’s in front of them. They are willing to put their work, caring for those impacted by COVID-19 and other[...]

Volatility Spreads Alongside COVID-19 Fears “And as you rise above The fear-lines in his brow You look down Hear the sound Of the faces in the crowd” Source: Fearless: Gilmour/Waters It’s difficult to strike an appropriate chord when analyzing and educating interested parties about volatility in the current environment. If “a picture says a thousand words” then the word count for this Inside Volatility Newsletter will come in between David Foster Wallace’s magnum[...]

A Fireside Chat with Members of Cboe’s Boards On Friday, March 6, Cboe offices around the world celebrated International Women’s Day during a fireside chat with members of Cboe’s boards of directors: Rebecca Fuller, Janet Froetscher and Jill Sommers.  Women comprise 28 percent of Cboe Global Markets Board of Directors, outweighing the U.S. average of 19.2 percent. We’re proud to have strong female representation on our board and it was an honor to hear from a few of[...]

In honor of Black History Month, we’re showcasing leaders who are helping the next generation find their way and integrating diversity into their work and lives. With more than a year of Cboe-HR experience under her belt, Nyree Bryant has a strong sense of Cboe’s associate population, where it’s thriving and where it needs some help. “Honestly, we have great workplace diversity,” says Nyree, Talent Recruiting Manger. “We have associates from all over the world,[...]

In like a Lion….or Bulls on Parade In the late 1960s John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival) wrote Proud Mary which could well describe the broad market of late. Big wheel keep on turnin’ Proud Mary keep on burnin’ Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river As we roll toward the end of February and into March, equity markets have been on a tear. The S&P 500® Index keeps on turnin’, burnin’, and rollin’. March tends to act as a bridge[...]

New study highlights volatility risk premium for strategies that sell Russell 2000 options With the low interest rate environment and steady bull market of recent years, lower yields and lower expected returns from “traditional” investments have left many investors wanting more. If you’re looking for new strategies that have the potential to harness the rich pricing of options and to enhance risk-adjusted returns, Wilshire Analytics may have a solution. The recently published Wilshire[...]

In January, Cboe published its vision for equity market structure reform. Our goal in drafting this report was to create a new dialogue – to shift the focus to what’s working well and what could be enhanced. Our customer-first approach means we value investor choice and we are dedicated to defining markets that are beneficial to all those who participate in them. We’ve already received great industry feedback on this document and want to keep the momentum going. If you haven’t[...]

Everyone Has a Plan Until… Thirty years ago (February 11, 1990) Buster Douglas shocked the world when he knocked out Mike Tyson in the 10th round of their Tokyo bout. Tyson came into the fight as the undefeated and undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. He had 37 wins, 0 losses and had never been knocked down. Douglas had lost his previous fight, his mother had passed away three weeks prior, and was listed as a 42:1 longshot. Mike Tyson had an air of invincibility and arguably underestimated[...]

This year’s stellar lineup of Cboe RMC speakers is led by two dynamic keynotes, John Coates and Annie Duke. Decision-making experts, authors and academics, Coates and Annie have no shortage of insights to share. Learn more about them below. John Coates | Derivatives Trader Turned Behavioral Neuroscientist John Coates’ early career including trading derivatives for Goldman Sachs and running a trade desk for Deutsche Bank. As a trader, Coates watched fellow traders make countless decisions[...]

Cboe Market Close (CMC), an alternative to closing auctions in the U.S. stock market, is planned to launch on Friday, March 6, 2020, after receiving SEC approval on January 22, 2020. Cboe Market Close was created to reduce closing auction costs and provide an alternative source of on-close liquidity for market participants by creating competition around Market-On-Close (MOC) orders. Its approval by the SEC staff after a robust, transparent and public comment period affirms the obvious case for[...]

"What — Me, Worry?" On the December 1956 cover of Mad Magazine, Alfred E. Neuman made the first of his many appearances as a write-in candidate for President of the United States. As one of the longest running satirical publications in US history, the writers of Mad Magazine both parodied and captured the omnipresent state of uncertainty. In capital markets, some degree of worry is inevitable. Market practitioners and talking heads often reference the "wall of worry" that equity and fixed[...]

Not All Tenors Behave the Same As the holiday season draws to a close, I am reminded of the music of my childhood. When we put up holiday decorations my mom would invariably play The Three Tenors Christmas on an antiquated cassette player. I can still hear Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, and Jose Carreras singing Silent Night or Happy Christmas (War is Over) in my mind. They were the only “tenors” I knew until I started working on the Cboe. In finance, tenor has a different[...]

As Head of U.S. Equities at Cboe, I recently laid out my team's plans for 2020 in a letter to Cboe's customers. Read on to learn about what's in store for U.S. Equities at Cboe this year. Cboe’s Customer-First Approach As we start a new year at Cboe, we’re going all-in on our customer-first approach by organizing ourselves in a way that better serves you. What exactly does that look like? Expert Dialogue. A dedicated team that knows you, your firm and your trading goals. We’re[...]

The 2010s experienced the longest U.S. bull market ever and was also the first 10-year stretch in nearly 170 years that didn’t experience a U.S. recession. U.S. stocks closed out 2019 with a 190 percent gain, and according to The New York Times, in 2019, you “couldn’t lose money in the market if you tried.” So, how did the first week of 2020 fare in comparison? Are we heading for another historic year or is there change in the air? Here are the big market-moving headlines[...]

While the managing editor of the Farmers' Almanac states that the new decade actually starts in 2021, we were feeling nostalgic as we say goodbye to our teenage years and head into 2020. Sure, we've got one more year to go, but we wanted to share some interesting trends we found over the past 10 years. Marked by unprecedented growth, the 2010s experienced the longest U.S. bull market in history and was the first 10-year span in at least 170 years that did not experience a recession in the U.S. As[...]