Mandy Xu
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February 9, 2026
Link to Report: Macro Volatility Digest
WHAT STANDS OUT:
- Options market sentiment has shifted notably in precious metals. GLD skew, which has been persistently inverted over the past year on the back of bullish call demand, has now flipped to puts trading at a premium as traders price in higher downside risk to the outlook for gold. GLD 1M skew is now the steepest since “Liberation Day”. Retail trading in GLD options has also turned, with call buying activity falling to a 2-year low while call overwriting has picked up significantly. We see a similar dynamic in SLV, but even more bearish, with retail put buying levels reaching their highest in over 3 years.
- Over the past 3 months, Russell 2000® Index has outperformed NDX by over 10% (among the largest 3M outperformance in the last 20 years). Looking forward, investors are pricing in continued volatility in the Tech sector, especially relative to small-caps. This can be seen in the VXN-RVX spread (NDX vs. RTY 1M implied vol spread) which has widened to near a 5-year high (see chart below).
- Cboe is adding RTY index options to our Global Trading Hour session (i.e. non-US market hours) starting today, in addition to the current line-up of SPX®, XSP®, and VIX® index options. Overall RTY index option volume jumped 20% last quarter to their highest in almost 10 years, while total volume in our GTH session surged 34%. Notably, SPX index options have now overtaken E-mini options on futures as the dominant contract during the overnight session.
Tech vs. Small Cap Volatility Spread Spikes
Source: Cboe
