LEAD

‘Looking Over Our Shoulder:’ Traders Are Loading Up on VIX Calls
Jess Menton – Bloomberg
Summer is officially here for US stock traders. Recession odds aren’t alarming. The US and Iran are negotiating. Corporate America’s profits are at record highs. And trade policy? Not too much of a worry — at least for now. Yet Tuesday morning’s slide in US equity futures — following a massive selloff in Asian markets led by South Korea — highlights how fragile the AI-fueled stock rally is.
/jlne.ws/43SdqEF

Schwab and Cboe Confirm S&P 500 Binary Options for 47 Million Retail Accounts
Shannon Harwood – Tech Times
Charles Schwab confirmed today it is building S&P 500 binary options with Cboe Global Markets and will make them available to customers in the coming months — the first on-record acknowledgment from the brokerage that it is entering the prediction-market space. The announcement adds one of the world’s largest retail brokerages, with roughly 47.2 million accounts and $11.8 trillion in client assets as of the first quarter of 2026, to a market that Robinhood and Interactive Brokers entered first. For retail investors, the practical implication is direct: a class of instrument that pays exactly $100 or nothing, depending on where the S&P 500 closes relative to a set level, is coming to the same brokerage screen where they already hold stocks, exchange-traded funds, and standard options. What makes Schwab’s version structurally distinct — and what the company is counting on — is the plumbing underneath: these are not the prediction market contracts that 17 states are currently fighting in court.
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Interactive Brokers Brings ChatGPT and Grok into Trading, Covering Options and Futures
Finance Magnates
Interactive Brokers has expanded its artificial intelligence offering by integrating ChatGPT and Grok into its trading platform, while also adding support for options and futures. The move extends the broker’s push into AI-driven tools and follows its earlier integration with Anthropic’s Claude. The company said on Monday that clients can now connect their existing accounts to the AI platforms through certified marketplaces without opening new accounts or sharing sensitive credentials. Once connected, users can interact with their portfolios using natural language to analyze positions, research markets, and generate trading instructions.
/jlne.ws/4acUHaC

Can the Market Still Bet on the ‘Greenspan Put’?; The return of inflation after the pandemic has left a question mark over whether the Put still exists—and plenty of debate about whether it is a good thing
James Mackintosh – The Wall Street Journal
Shareholders have always been affected by what the Federal Reserve does, but until Alan Greenspan took over they never expected the central bank to save them from themselves. Greenspan, who has died at 100, left a lasting legacy for stock market investors: The Greenspan Put, which morphed into the Fed Put. Named for derivatives that protect investors against price falls, it stems from the recognition that the effects of a stock market crash threaten monetary-policy goals and, therefore, the Fed should step in and help.
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SpaceX ETFs Contribute to ‘Flowmageddon’
Shanny Basar – Traders Magazine
Exchange-traded flows in the U.S exceeded $1 trillion by 17 June 2026, boosted by the launch of new ETFs on SpaceX following the record initial public offering (IPO) of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence and space company. SpaceX’s IPO raised a total of $85.7bn, overtaking the $18.4bn raised by social network Facebook in 2012, the previous largest U.S. tech company IPO. The total volume on the first day of trading on Friday 12 June 2026 was 522.1 million shares for $85.3bn, according to data provider BMLL, with a closing price of $160.95, 19.2% above the offer price. Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, highlighted that 11 leveraged SpaceX ETFs from seven issuers were launched on Monday 15 June 2026, the trading day following the IPO listing. Balchunas said on X: “One of these is gonna be set for life rich, a few will eat and a few will starve and die. It’s basically ETF Survivor.”
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War, Inflation Can’t Stop ETFs’ Trillion-Dollar Inflow Boom
Chloe Cresswell – Bloomberg
Exchange-traded funds are attracting cash at a record-breaking trillion-dollar pace despite persistent inflation, war in the Middle East and bouts of market volatility — a testament to American households’ enduring buy-and-hold conviction. US-listed ETFs have absorbed about $1 trillion this year, reaching the milestone before June is over. That’s after taking all of 2024 and 10 months last year to do the same.
/jlne.ws/4uWaBgS

Hedge Funds Piled Into Bearish Oil Bets Ahead of US-Iran MOU
Will Kubzansky and Gabriel Levin – Bloomberg
Hedge funds boosted bearish bets on US crude to the most in nearly five months on expectations that a preliminary peace deal between Washington and Tehran will boost Middle East oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Money managers added to gross short positions on West Texas Intermediate by 10,865 lots in the week ended June 16, bringing the total to 102,895 lots, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That’s the most short-only positions since January 27th, when a glut weighed on oil prices in the months before the US-Iran war.
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Exchanges

Abaxx calls for probe, hires Paul Weiss after short seller’s attack
Bloomberg News – Financial Post
Abaxx Technologies Inc. is asking Canadian market regulators to investigate whether manipulative trading occurred in its shares, and has hired law firm Paul Weiss for help in response to a short-selling campaign by Viceroy Research. The Toronto-based market infrastructure company said Sunday it has contacted the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization, or CIRO, to request a review trading activity in its stock by Viceroy and other parties. Abaxx also said its Singapore business had proactively contacted the Monetary Authority of Singapore regarding allegations made by the short seller.
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REGULATION

CFTC Seeks Input on 24/7 Futures, Energy Perpetuals Trades
Lydia Beyoud – Bloomberg
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission asked for public input on both perpetual contracts and 24/7 trading for traditional energy derivatives, after industry heavyweights raised concerns about offshore platforms and excessive levels of risk. “As registered entities extend trading hours and introduce new contract designs, a clear, data-driven record will help the Commission better understand these developments’ implications and impact in the market,” Chairman Michael Selig said in a statement Monday.
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Swap or Future? A Field Guide to CME v. CFTC
James Davies – Linkedin
On 18 June the Chicago Mercantile Exchange filed suit against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the agency that licenses and oversees it. The complaint asks a federal court in Washington to undo the CFTC’s 29 May decision to let Kalshi list a bitcoin perpetual as a future, and to strike down the policy statement that invited every other exchange to do the same (complaint, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. v. Selig, No. 1:26-cv-02157 (D.D.C.), Courtlistner; the order it challenges is at CFTC Filing, and the policy statement at 91 Fed. Reg. 33,160, Policy). The whole case turns on a single question. Is a crypto perpetual a swap or a future under the law?
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