Despite lower volatility, stock market sensitivity remains strong

During Q3 2020 stock markets moved rather sideways, as reflected in the VStoxx and VIX. However, stock markets are still very sensitive, despite a continued recovery of the global economy since its lows in the second quarter.

This is shown by significant short-term swings in the markets lately due to unforeseen market events. Such events causing this turbulence across the markets are likely to occur on a regular basis in the future, but with varying degrees of severity.

“The recent impact of sudden market events show how fragile the rebound of the global equity markets still are”, said Tobias Stöhr, Sales Executive at Spectrum Markets. “For example, the unfounded plunge of the US tech stock exchange Nasdaq on September 3, 2020, has led to widespread uncertainty across global stock markets. As a result of which also the DAX temporarily lost around 600 points compared to the previous day, despite the fact the German business climate index ifo has been rising steadily since its historic low in April 2020. On Spectrum Markets, this event led to a share of out-of-hour trading of 45.1 percent on that day – considerably above the average for Q3 2020. At the same time, this figure underlines the importance for investors to be able to react to unexpected market situations at any time.”

In September 37.1 million securitised derivatives were traded. This represents a 36% increase over the previous month.

The share of out-of-hours trading (i.e. 1730-0900) was 38.5%.

The breakdown of trading volume of securitised derivatives in September is as follows: 88.6% is attributable to indices (August: 85%), 7% to FX (August: 5.4%) and 4.4% to commodities (August: 9.6%).

The top traded underlyings were OMX with a share of 30.1%, followed by the S&P 500 with 27.7% and the DAX with a share of 14.6%. All 21 underlying have been traded in September (overview).

Quarterly figures for Q3 2020 are: 102 million securitised derivatives were traded and thus marking a new high with an increase of 4% over Q2 2020. Also a new high was reached in executed trades with 387,969, an increase of 7% over Q2 2020. The quarterly share of out-of-hours trading was at 37.3%, and thus at almost the same level as in Q2 2020 at 40%.

Spectrum Markets is a pan-European marketplace where retail investors can invest in structured products via their brokers. From its launch, trading has been available in ten countries: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Ireland, Finland, and Belgium.

About Spectrum Markets
Spectrum Markets is the trading name of Spectrum MTF Operator GmbH. Headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, it is a pan-European trading venue for securitised derivatives aimed at financial institutions and their retail investors. Regulated by BaFin and MiFID II compliant, the exchange uses a uniquely open architecture system to allow investors to trade with increased choice, control and stability. Through its pan-European ISIN, 24/5 trading services and its own proprietary venue, Spectrum enables a guaranteed baseline level of liquidity over a range of products and is able to swiftly and safely match a significant number of orders and process multiple quotes every second. Further information can be found at spectrum-markets.com

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FTI Consulting
E-Mail: SpectrumMarkets@fticonsulting.com