Cboe Blogs

We’re celebrating Women’s History Month throughout March. Check back regularly as we add new profiles, quotes and more, or follow along on your favorite social media channel with #CboeWomen. Her Story: In Focus Click the box to read about some of the women (and men!) that make Cboe great.  Bea Ringold                                      Roma Colwell-Steinke [...]

Lisa encourages women to write their own rules and resist asking for permission Lisa Shemie never envisioned a career in law. “I was not one of those people who dreamed of being a lawyer,” she says. Instead, while trying to figure out her next step after college, her dad reminded her of how great she was at arguing with him and suggested considering law as a profession. Without a tremendous amount of forethought, she decided to apply to law school, and the rest is history.  Today,[...]

As an educator in Cboe’s Options Institute, Roma is passionate about helping young professionals find their place in the finance industry Roma Colwell-Steinke spent the earlier part of her career as a market maker for Group One on the Pacific Stock Exchange in San Francisco before an earthquake rendered it temporarily unusable in 1989. She and other PSE market makers then came to Chicago to trade on the Cboe floor until the PSE floor reopened.  “I looked down at the floor and there[...]

Flattening of VIX Futures Term Structure The Cboe Volatility Index® (“VIX”) futures term structure flattened at the end of February due to some sizeable spread trades. These trades appear to be positioned to benefit from a shift in the term structure curve from contango (upward sloping) to backwardation (downward sloping), which tends to happen when there is a volatility spike. VOLATILITY NEWS Schaeffer's Investment Research: Rare VIX Signal Points to Spring Volatility Spike [...]

From the trading floor to corporate, Bea’s seen it all in her 38 years at Cboe Bea Ringold got her start at Cboe as a price reporter in 1981, much to the surprise of friends and family. “People would see traders and trading floors on the news and say, ‘You work there?! You actually do that?!’ It was a big thing back in the day. The floor was so crowded we hardly had elbow room,” Bea says. Packed in with the floor’s many characters, Bea soon rose through the ranks,[...]

Over the next week, Cboe will roll out options on 11 Select Sector indices. Cboe’s Select Sector Index options are designed to provide investors with an easy way to add specific U.S. industry sector exposure to their portfolios and are expected to have particular utility for investors seeking an alternative to options on ETFs.  The Select Sectors use the GICS® (Global Industry Classification Standard) to categorize each company within the S&P 500 Index into one of 11 sectors.[...]

Today, Cboe Global Markets announced the rollout schedule of new large-sized, cash-settled options on 11 Select Sector Indexes from February 7 through 14. The first options on the Materials Select Sector Index launched today. There are several key features of the options that users may find appealing, including: Efficient Exposure to U.S. Industry Sectors: With special appeal for investors seeking an alternative to ETF options, including European customers constrained by certain European regulations [...]

Following a decline in the S&P 500® Index of 6.9% in October and a drop of 9.2% in December, more investors appear to be exploring income-producing strategies that have the potential for relatively strong risk-adjusted returns amid increased market volatility. To help investors with that process, Cboe offers 10 benchmark indexes designed to measure the hypothetical returns of strategies that use S&P 500 (SPX(SM)) options, with daily data histories beginning in mid-1986. HIGHER OPTIONS[...]

Since 1983, Cboe has offered stock index options. In 2018, several new all-time records for volume and open interest were reported as investors faced heightened volatility. Index options have the potential to generate more income for options sellers who receive options premiums, help manage exposure and protect a portfolio from damaging huge drawdowns. RECORD VOLUME AND OPEN INTEREST FOR CBOE’S S&P 500 OPTIONS In 2018, the average daily volume (ADV) for S&P 500® options (SPXTM and[...]

Stock market gyrations this December have been attributed to the dominance of systematic trading driven by algorithms. While electronic trading may cause dramatic price swings in the market, there’s a meaningful behavioral element as well. Investors and traders are faced with sudden potential losses in their equity positions and a need to assess risk tolerances going into 2019. The “January effect”? The “January effect” hypothesizes a price increase in securities during[...]

On December 20, Cboe’s daily Put-Call Ratio for its entire options volume rose to 1.82, reaching its highest level in more than 23 years. Analysts and investors often follow and cite put/call ratios in conjunction with attempts to gain insights on possible changes in investors’ bullish or bearish sentiments. Recent news stories in Barron’s and in Bloomberg have highlighted comments on the possible impact of high put/call ratios. DATES WITH HIGH AND LOW PUT/CALL RATIOS The table[...]

This week’s sell-off in the U.S. stock market contributed to making this December’s price performance one of the worse in many years.  The Russell 2000 Index (RUT), the benchmark for the U.S. small-cap performance, outperformed other U.S. equity indexes on the way up in early 2018 and has underperformed during the tail end of the year. The RUT is down more than 10 percent in the month of December. Several factors contributed to the index decline, including rising U.S. interest rates[...]

While many investors are concerned that benchmark indexes for major investment classes are down year-to date, it appears more investors are using S&P 500 options to manage risk and enhance income On December 18, open interest for Cboe’s S&P 500 (SPX and SPXW) options surpassed 20 million for the first time in its history of more than 35 years and hit a new all-time record high of 20,101,598 contracts. The Cboe S&P 500 95-10 Collar Index (CLLSM), an index that tracks the[...]

More than 140 financial professionals, including top traders, strategists and researchers attended the fourth Annual Cboe Risk Management Conference (RMC) Asia on December 3 and 4 in Hong Kong.  Topics related to the management of risk and return in investment portfolios were discussed by 12 speakers at RMC Asia, including Tim Edwards, Tim Weithers and Cboe Chairman and CEO Ed Tilly. Day One: Options/Volatility Fundamentals: Synthetic Option Strategies, Volatility Trading, and Futures and[...]

More than 150 financial professionals, including top traders, strategists and researchers attended the inaugural Cboe Risk Management Conference (RMC) in Tel Aviv, Israel on November 6. A variety of topics related to the management of risk and return in investment portfolios were discussed by 17 speakers at RMC Israel, including the three speakers pictured below: Sheldon Natenberg (left), Andy Lowenthal (center), and David Blitzer (right). A sampling of comments and topics covered by the 17 speakers[...]