Koen Hoorelbeke

Options Brief - AI rally summit day two - 15 May 2026 social.saxo/xcegi9k via @saxobank The S&P 500 hit a new all-time high Thursday, above 7,500 for the first time. Cisco surged 13% on earnings. Nvidia kept climbing. Day one of the Trump-Xi summit went well. Then Friday arrived: KOSPI down nearly 4%, US futures pointing lower, and Xi’s Taiwan warning still on the table. The options market is pricing a split story.

Today's Saxo Market Call podcast, today featuring @Ole_S_Hansen on #gold, #oil, #wheat and more. Also, what is signal in Jensen Huang joining Trump on Beijing trip & much more. saxostrats.podbean.com/e/dip-bought-a… With host @johnjhardy . Apologies for botched audio!

I started trading in May 1974 on the CBOE. In those 52 years, I’ve navigated exactly 10 major bull markets and 10 major bear markets. Every single time, the investor sentiment does a perfect 180: 1. "I wish I had bought them" at unbelievable highs. 2. "I wish I had sold them" at shocking lows. Right now, the air is thick with the first one. Without fail, many of the same people are still on board when the train pulls into Panic Central. Phase 21 is coming; it always does. 📉📈 #Trading #MarketCycle #Investing

Options Brief - CPI spike Iran deal fades - 13 May 2026 social.saxo/pkoawns via @saxobank Two events hit markets simultaneously on Tuesday: April CPI came in at 3.8% year-on-year, slightly above the 3.7% forecast, and the US-Iran ceasefire was declared dead before the session close. Nasdaq 100 fell 0.87%. The Dow edged up 0.11%. Defensive rotation, not panic. The options market is telling a more nuanced story ...

Yesterday's options flow (12 may) markets: unclear mag7: income crypto: bearish biotech: accumulation metals: accumulation energy: bullish rates: unclear risk-off: accumulation semis: hedging financials: bearish Markets EOD options flow was busy but not clean: $SPX/QQQ/IWM downside hedges met NVDA call selling and selective upside in GLW/TSM/metals. Big premium, mixed intent. Not every tape deserves a heroic label. #Volatility #SPX Mag7 Mag7 options flow leaned income-first: 50k NVDA 17-Jul 220 calls were sold to open for $73.25m, dwarfing the tape. TSLA added short-dated call gamma, but the dominant signal was premium collection, not clean risk-on. #Mag7 #NVDA Crypto Crypto options flow ended with a defensive tilt: MSTR and CRCL puts dominated confirmed opening premium, while ETHA saw longer-dated downside structures. COIN and IREN calls added upside pockets, but not enough to flip the tape. #Crypto #Volatility Biotech Healthcare flow leaned constructive: large deep-ITM XLV call openings dominated premium, while XBI added Jan 2027 downside protection and far-upside convexity. Accumulation tone, but not clean one-way risk. #XLV #XBI Metals Metals options flow leaned accumulation: SLV ITM calls and GLD long-dated calls stood out, while GLD/GDX/SLV puts showed hedge demand still alive. Upside participation, but not without crash mats. #Gold #Silver Energy Energy options leaned bullish, but not blindly. USO upside and a large VLO Sep call spread stood out, while XLE/XOP puts kept the tape hedged into oil-data and supply-risk catalysts. #Energy #Oil Rates Rates ETF flow stayed messy: IEF saw large 93 put selling, while HYG/TLT drew fresh put risk and TLT calls were sold near spot. More rate-vol positioning than a clean directional message. #Rates #TLT Risk-off Risk-off ETF flow leaned defensive but not outright bearish: XLV deep ITM calls dominated premium, while XLU/XLP puts added protection into utilities and staples. Defensive accumulation with a hedge tail. #XLV #RiskManagement Semis Semis showed a defensive options tape: heavy confirmed-opening MU put premium, ETF downside hedges in SMH/SOXX, and a large NVDA 220 call sale capping upside. Upside was not absent, but protection led the story. #Semiconductors #Volatility Financials Financials flow skewed defensive: WFC, JPM, BAC and C saw confirmed-opening put demand, while KRE had both upside calls and longer-dated downside protection. Net read: banks rallied, but traders still paid for cracks underneath. #Banks #Volatility

Market Quick Take - 13 May 2026 social.saxo/kszgize via @saxobank #equities #volatility #crypto #fixedincome #currencies #commodities #macroevents

Fairly fascinating commentary from Simon White of Bloomberg: “Putting gamma, realised correlation and dispersion on the same 3D grid shows that as far back as we have data (to 2014), correlation has never been as low when gamma and dispersion have been as high. The green diamond in the chart below is the latest point. The alpine peak just below that is from 2021, the only other time the three risk measures have been nearly as elevated as they are now.” In summary, the entire rally from the March lows has been built on a “mechanical chase.” Without real spot buying, market fragility could be exposed quickly when the stratospheric gamma squeeze ends. This is a complex topic for many, but traders should know that if breadth remains weak, any mean reversion could be dynamic. Have a lovely Tuesday. 😊

Yesterday's options flow (11 may) markets: unclear mag7: bullish crypto: bullish biotech: hedging metals: bullish energy: hedging rates: bullish risk-off: hedging semis: unclear financials: bullish Markets Markets flow was big, but not clean: $SPX/QQQ/IWM downside protection met SMH/SPY/AMD/TSLA upside call demand. Net message: institutions are adding convexity both ways, not making a one-way macro call. #Volatility #SPX Mag7 Mag7 opening flow leaned upside, with TSLA and NVDA calls dominating premium, but not cleanly risk-on: AMZN/NVDA/MSFT puts kept a defensive layer in the tape. Bullish, but with airbags still inflated. #Mag7 #Volatility Crypto Crypto options flow leaned bullish, but not blindly so: large CORZ/RIOT/COIN/IBIT call openings met heavy CRCL/CIFR/BMNR downside premium. Net message: upside chase with hedges still being paid for. #Crypto #Volatility Biotech Biotech ETF flow leaned defensive: XLV put premium and XBI downside hedges stood out, while far-OTM XBI calls added speculative upside convexity. Net read: hedging first, not outright bearish. #Biotech #Volatility Metals Metals options flow leaned constructive: GLD/SLV calls dominated confirmed opening premium, while large GLD and SLV put-selling structures suggested traders were willing to monetise elevated downside skew rather than chase crash protection. #Gold #Silver Energy Energy options leaned defensive: USO put clusters dominated premium, while XOP saw deep-ITM calls that looked more like stock replacement than upside chase. Mixed tape, but protection was the louder message. #Energy #Oil Rates Rates ETF flow leaned constructive: HYG calls dominated confirmed opening premium, while TLT saw upside call-spread interest into the next macro window. Not pure risk-on, though — HYG puts kept a hedge underneath. #Rates #Credit Risk-off Risk-off ETF flow leaned defensive: confirmed opening activity was concentrated in XLV puts and a long-dated XLU put, while a paired XLV Jan 2028 call/put print keeps the read balanced rather than aggressively bearish. #Volatility #ETFs Semis Semis saw a split tape: big SMH/MU/AMD upside call exposure, but also chunky MU, NVDA and SOXX put demand. Net message: investors still want AI-chip upside, but are paying to protect the downside. #Semis #Volatility Financials Financials options flow leaned bullish, but not blindly so: Visa deep ITM calls dominated premium, XLF showed big two-sided sector exposure, and KRE looked like structured regional-bank positioning rather than simple upside chasing. #Financials #Volatility

Options Brief - Summit stakes oil surge - 12 May 2026 social.saxo/cxqepun via @saxobank Monday’s equity session printed record closes - and VIX rose 7% on the same day. That contradiction is today’s entire story. The 1-day VIX fell 9% while the 9-day VIX surged 19%, producing a kink in the volatility term structure that lands almost exactly on the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing on May 14-15. With Iran now crowding the summit agenda per Treasury Secretary Bessent, and ...

Market Quick Take - 12 May 2026 social.saxo/sdkshlr via @saxobank #equities #volatility #crypto #fixedincome #currencies #commodities #macroevents

@TedPillows I'd suggest that we all buy some more of it. Why stop now 🥴

SanDisk $SNDK monthly RSI has reached 98. Insane..

Completely agree. I'm not there yet either. Getting there. But it's so difficult. You have your mind set to one, and it's working, but you have to let it go for the opposite. And in your mind you're ok with that, but at the same time you constantly think "is it too soon", or "shouldn't I wait for more confirmation". One day, one day it will all be so easy ;)

Something that came up on Friday's call worth sharing. Sounds simple. Amazing how few can do it. If you are purely systematic and you have no real other way to read the market, you're just literally every day wanting to do the same thing, then typically being on the short side of options is where you're going to find positive P&L, right? But the flip side of that is you are going to experience horrible days where the market just screws you. What I find personally over my time in trading is it's better to be flexible and be able to trade both ways. And surprisingly that's difficult. I've probably met hundreds of traders over the years, and there were so many that were just only comfortable one way round. They just couldn't get their head around being able to both buy options and sell them. A lot of those over the years got filtered out by the market. Like, they lost their jobs, they struggled to find other ones, they just didn't have great P&Ls. The people who performed consistently through every regime were the ones who could say "you know what, it's just not a market to be short anymore" or "it's not a market to be long" and actually change behaviour. Again. Sounds simple but amazing how few can do it.

Options Brief - Jobs beat oil surge - 11 May 2026 social.saxo/y07xlhj via @saxobank Friday’s session was one of those days that tests how you think about markets. A jobs report that nearly doubled forecasts. WTI crude crossing $100 on US-Iran military exchanges near the Strait of Hormuz. US equities printing all-time highs. European markets down over 1 percent. All on the same day. Beneath the surface, call options volumes have been surging for weeks, leaving market makers short gamma ...

Friday's options flow (08 may) markets: accumulation mag7: bullish crypto: bullish biotech: bullish metals: bullish energy: accumulation rates: hedging risk-off: bullish semis: accumulation financials: hedging Markets EOD options flow leaned toward accumulation: large confirmed-opening call blocks in AMD, MCHP, SNDK, SOXX and QQQ, while SPX/SPY puts showed investors still paying for protection. Bullish, but not carefree. #SPX #QQQ Mag7 Mag7 options flow leaned bullish: AAPL deep-ITM calls dominated confirmed opening premium, while AMZN/GOOGL saw long-dated call demand and TSLA/NVDA added shorter-dated upside. Put buying in MSFT/META keeps the signal from being clean. #Mag7 #Volatility Crypto Crypto options flow leaned risk-on: MSTR weekly calls dominated, COIN saw upside rolls plus one major long-dated put, and IREN/CRCL added convex call demand. Bullish, but not blind. #CryptoStocks #Volatility Biotech Healthcare ETF flow leaned bullish into the close: a large confirmed-opening XLV Dec 145 call print dominated the tape, while XBI added short-dated call gamma and smaller put hedges. Clean upside bias, but not without biotech chop. #XLV #XBI Metals Metals options leaned constructive into the close: GLD/SLV opening call premium dominated, with GDX upside also active. But GLD/SLV puts and SCCO downside kept the read from becoming a clean risk-on signal. #Gold #Silver Energy Energy flow leaned accumulation: COP deep-ITM calls dominated confirmed opening premium, while USO/XOP/XLE puts showed active hedge/income positioning into elevated oil volatility. Directional, but not one-way. #Energy #Oil Rates Rates ETF flow looked defensive: TLT saw long-dated put buying and heavy short-dated call selling, while HYG/IEF prints added credit and duration protection. Message: protect bond downside, cap upside, stay cautious into auctions/macro. #Rates #TLT Risk-off Risk-off ETF flow was not cleanly bearish: XLV saw the largest confirmed-opening premium in Dec 145 calls, while XLP/XLU put buying added near-term defensive hedges. Defensive rotation, not panic. #ETF #Volatility Semis Semis flow leaned accumulation-heavy: AMD Aug 380 calls dominated confirmed openings, while SOXX saw long-dated upside and MU/SMH/INTC carried the hedge book. Bullish, but not clean risk-on. #Semis #AMD Financials Financials options flow turned defensive: KRE saw a large Dec 71p/76c opening combo, while C, WFC and JPM attracted June put demand. Not outright panic, but the tape says banks are being hedged into summer. #Financials #Banks

Market Quick Take - 11 May 2026 social.saxo/qs4vu1f via @saxobank #equities #volatility #crypto #currencies #commodities #fixedincome #macroevents

I find it quite interesting that oil is out performing semis on a 6 Month basis despite the parabolic run on semis 🤣🤣🤣 $USO $SOXX $SMH $XSD

Many traders are spending the weekend replaying the tape: “How could I have sold anything? This market is clearly strong and I missed the whole move.” Or: “How could I have shorted into that strength just because I thought it had gone too far?” That kind of hindsight pain feels like discipline, but often it isn’t. It’s self-punishment dressed up as learning. Many of us learned that pattern early from parents who thought they were helping us improve, while actually teaching us to criticize ourselves after mistakes. The better message is: “I could have handled that better. I’ll adjust next time. I survived. I’m still here. And the market will be open again Monday.” That’s how traders grow. Not through shame, but through honest correction — and the wisdom to know the difference.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ #Stocks #Trading #Investing ~Slim

This is who you're trading against.

Remember Silver, end of Jan this year, but now even a bit bigger. Market makers (who hedge all those calls) will unwind one day, and then it will flip. This is structurally not bad, it doesn't mean we go in a recession or something. Just means we could have a violent 'get your feet back on the ground' moment. 3 dates come to mind: 15 May (monthly options expiry), 20 May (NVDA earnings), 31 May (last day of the month when funds need to make monthly reports). Turnaround usually happens the day after one of these, when the market makers unwind their hedges. Of course, I could be completely wrong. Haven't we seen even crazier things the last couple of months/years. But buying some cheap puts (put spreads even better) might not be a bad idea. Or like Warren once said "a bull run is like sex: it's the most fun, right before the end". Enjoy ;)

The entire market is in an unprecedented gamma squeeze. Open Interest at all time high, outstanding delta above $4.2tn - absolute all time high.