US WTI Oil futures reach one-year high; Global index futures rise; Ethereum futures to be launched by CME; Retail trading of call options on meteoric rise;
US WTI Oil futures reach one-year high
Price of US WTI Oil front-month futures reached 57.29 USD per barrel on Friday. Since March 2020, WTI futures have been trading at less than 50 USD per barrel. The year of 2021 started with WTI futures ending steadily over 50 USD and 05th Feb 2021 recorded the highest ever price in an year at 57.29 USD per barrel.
Global index futures on the rise
Index futures across the world edged forward from the start of the week. Dow futures ended at 31072.5, over 4% up from the start of the week. NASDAQ futures ended at 13604.12, over 5% up. S&P futures also recorded more than a 5% growth in the week, ending at 3884.62.
Nikkei 225 futures, DAX futures, CAC40 futures all recorded gains through the week.
Ethereum futures to be launched by CME
CME, one of the largest commodity exchanges in the world will be listing Ether futures from 8th Feb 2021. Ether will be the second crypto-derivative product to be listed by the CME. The settlement price of Ethereum futures will be determined via the trades that execute in the CME Globex system.
Read more about CME Ethereum futures: https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/ether-futures.html
Retail trading of call options on meteoric rise
According to Sundial Capital Research and Financial Times, the premium paid on call options by retail traders is now over 6 times the average that we saw between 2010 – 2020. Due to the rise of retail trading platforms like Robinhood, Interactive Brokers, E-Trade etc. a lot of retailers now have access to futures and options trading. During the decade from 2010-2020, the average of premiums paid by retailers on call options was less than 5B USD. In 2021, it peaked to nearly 40B and then dropped to about 30B USD.
To quote data from Financial Times, the retail call buys as a percentage, has grown to over 8% from nearly 2% average over the 2010-2020 period.
Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/ae1ecff4-9019-4a2a-97ea-55a3cd15c36a
