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The industry moves closer to making around-the-clock trading for U.S. equities markets a reality each day, and I am proud that Cboe is at the forefront of this evolution. We have officially submitted a proposal to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch near 24x5 U.S. Equities trading on Cboe EDGX Equities Exchange (EDGX) in December 2026, subject to regulatory review and industry development.

U.S. equities total market Average Daily Volume (ADV) rose 2.87% month-over-month to 20 billion shares, up 28% year-over-year, making February 2026 one of the highest ADV months on record.

February proved to be a tale of two markets as the weakness among “Magnificent 10” stocks impacted the cap-weighted S&P 500® Index leading to outperformance in small-cap and equal-weighted strategies. The S&P 500 Equal Weight Index (SPEQX) led all major benchmarks with a gain of 3.4%, finishing near all-time highs, while the Russell 2000® Index added 0.71%.

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 reached all-time highs in February, with Cboe Europe posting record monthly volumes for total trading, Periodic Auctions, Cboe BIDS Europe and Cboe Closing Cross (3C)

January 2026 European Cash Equities highlights included record volumes for Cboe Periodic Auctions and continued strong momentum in the Cboe Europe EBBO retail service.

January 2026 U.S. Cash Equities highlights include the launch of Enhanced Retail Price Improvement (ERPI) on BYX and the addition of Member Usage and Peer Ranking Reports.