SK Hynix Options Debut as Leveraged ETFs Steal Volume
SK Hynix options launched to lower-than-expected volume as speculative capital was diverted into newly listed leveraged ETFs, with early trading dominated by bearish call selling.
SK Hynix options debuted on Tuesday, but the launch failed to generate the bullish momentum implied by the underlying stock's 20% single-day surge and year-long rally. By midday, roughly 150,000 contracts had changed hands on the Cboe across five monthly expiries running through March 2027. While total call volume exceeded put volume, the dominant directional strategy was selling calls rather than buying them, indicating bets against a continued ascent.
This early bearish tilt was highly concentrated in the session's largest block trades. Data from Cboe LiveVol shows a single trader accounted for the two biggest transactions of the day by selling more than 2,200 contracts of the 180-strike calls expiring July 17. These nearly at-the-money contracts brought in about $9 a piece for a roughly $2 million sale.
The bearish sentiment extended well beyond this single block. According to LiveVol, the top seven single trades by volume in the new options were all bearish. This dynamic shows a clear preference for downside positioning or premium collection over buying upside exposure in the newly listed derivatives.
The relatively subdued volume points to a structural shift in how speculative capital is accessing high-flying semiconductor names. Almost a dozen leveraged single-stock ETFs tied to SK Hynix began trading on Tuesday, diverting a significant portion of retail demand away from traditional options. "Those ETFs – double long, double short – that's a lot of demand that maybe got taken away but I'm sure we'll see a pickup in volume when they list the weeklies," said Scott Bauer, CEO of Chicago-based Prosper Trading Academy.
The cannibalization effect is clearly visible when comparing SK Hynix's debut volume against its peers. The 150,000 contracts outpaced the 110,000 traded in the VanEck Semiconductor fund and nearly doubled the volume in Sandisk or Marvell. However, it was less than a third of the roughly 380,000 contracts traded in Micron and the Roundhill memory ETF (DRAM).
For context, Nvidia dominated the sector with 2.3 million contracts. The success of the DRAM ETF, which holds $23 billion in assets and counts SK Hynix as its third-largest position, demonstrates that much of the structural demand was already priced into wrapper products ahead of the options launch.
