Subscribe and stay up to date with our latest Insights.
Thoughts that the AI trade might have been over after last Friday’s rout looked to be premature. Interest is on the upside as stock futures are edging higher again today in the tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite as well as the Dow Jones Industrials and the S&P 500. More good news: Oil prices were falling better than 2% and below $90 a barrel amid optimism that a deal between the U.S. and Iran might be in the offing.
The markets look like they are in recovery mode after Friday’s hit, buoyed somewhat by the S&P 500’s rebalancing moves, which are officially effective in two weeks. After Friday’s close, it was announced that the tech-heavy index will add Marvell Technology and Flex to the index, replacing consumer-focused firms Campbell’s Co. and Pool Corp.
The options market is moving faster, tools are getting better, and discipline matters more than ever. Tradier’s TraderFest, sponsored by Cboe, recently brought together traders and industry leaders to discuss topics just like this.
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.
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.
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.
European equity trading volumes shifted towards Dark order books, Periodic Auctions and Systematic Internalisers during April. Cboe Europe maintained its position as the largest European exchange by market share, delivering strong performance across its diverse range of execution mechanisms.
The U.S. cash equities market saw a pullback in April, with total market Average Daily Volume (ADV) decreasing 12.99% month-over-month to 17.8 billion shares. Against this backdrop of declining volume, market share shifted toward off-exchange venues, which captured nearly half of all volume. Cboe EDGX® Equities Exchange (EDGX) stood out, increasing its market share to 4.5%. Within on-exchange trading, Cboe maintained a strong 21.0% market share.
In April 2026, Cboe FX Spot Average Daily Volume (ADV) reached $53.8 billion. Cboe SEF ADV1 topped $4.0 billion, representing a 17.2% increase from April 2025's ADV of $3.4 billion.
