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S&P Call Options Hit Record Highs with 2.6 Trillion: Hidden Risks of a Market Crash Behind the Crazy Betting Game
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Author: SOL Who Can’t Understand
Brothers, let me tell you something scary.
The trading volume of call options on the S&P 500 yesterday reached $2.6 trillion.
What does that mean?
Historically in the US stock market, there has never been such a high single-day figure.
This $2.6 trillion isn’t real money used to buy stocks.
In fact, retail investors and traders are frantically buying call options.
What are call options?
Spending a small amount of money to bet on stock prices rising, doubling if right, losing everything if wrong.
Now, the US stock market hits new highs every day, everyone thinks it will keep rising, so they buy desperately.
But here’s the problem: who is selling you the options you buy?
Market makers.
Market makers aren’t fools; when they sell you options, they have to bear the risk of the stock price rising.
To hedge, they have to buy the corresponding stocks.
If you buy a $1 option, they might have to buy $100 worth of stocks to hedge.
So, the $2.6 trillion options buying volume behind it is backed by a huge volume of stock purchases.
This isn’t investors optimistic about companies; it’s the options market forcing market makers to buy stocks.
The mechanism here is called gamma squeeze.
The more the stock price rises, the greater the risk in the market maker’s options.
They have to buy more stocks to hedge.
The more they buy, the faster the stock price rises.
The faster the stock price rises, the more they have to buy.
And in this cycle, the market is pushed to the sky.
This is the real reason why the S&P 500 keeps hitting new highs.
It’s not because companies are performing well, or the economy is strong.
It’s the buying in the options market dragging the index upward.
But can this cycle go on forever?
No.
Options have expiration dates.
On the expiration day, those betting on rises will close their positions, and market makers will also close theirs.
At that point, the buying pressure from before will turn into selling pressure.
And the strength will be exactly the same.
When prices go up sharply, they can fall just as hard.
The current S&P 500 isn’t about investors pricing in value.
What is pricing?
Looking at how much companies earn, how much they grow, how deep their moats are, and then assigning a reasonable price.
Now?
No one cares how much companies earn.
Everyone is betting whether it will go up tomorrow.
The record-breaking volume of call options trading shows the market has turned into a casino.
Retail investors are gambling, institutions are gambling, hedge funds are gambling.
The $2.6 trillion options volume is a $2.6 trillion bet.
The bigger the bet, the crazier the market.
The crazier the market, the more people gamble.
How is this different from the 2015 A-shares leveraged bull market?
No difference.
It’s all money driving, not value.
Money can push prices up, and it can crash them down.
No one knows.
But all markets driven by options will eventually collapse.
GameStop in 2021, gamma squeeze pushed the stock from $20 to $480, then back down to $40.
Tesla in 2020, the options frenzy pushed its valuation to the sky, then halved, then halved again.
History doesn’t repeat exactly, but it rhymes.
The current S&P 500 is like a magnified GameStop by 100 times.
When the $2.6 trillion options expire, or funds are concentrated for liquidation, that will be the day the bomb detonates.
And when it explodes, no one will notify you in advance.
Brothers, I’m not bearish on the US stock market.
In fact, I am long-term optimistic; there are good companies, real growth, and hard tech in the US.
But the current market has nothing to do with company fundamentals anymore.
I need to warn brothers who leverage, take loans, or buy on margin without cash flow.
When prices rise, the explosives push you to the sky.
When prices fall, the explosives send you into the ground.
If you’re on the