Traders are piling into this international stock market that just pulled ahead of the Nasdaq — SkimNews
Get the Finance newsletter
Daily finance — markets, central banks, M&A, the prints that move money. Free.
- EWZ (iShares MSCI Brazil ETF) climbed more than 12% from last month's lows to gain 19% year-to-date, surpassing the Nasdaq-100's 15% advance after recovering from a monthslong sell-off off six-year highs reached in April.
- Options volume on EWZ surged to more than six times the 30-day average on Wednesday, with over 420,000 contracts traded by midday — ranking the fund among the top-20 traded securities alongside Alphabet and the Cboe VIX Index, per Cboe LiveVol and SpotGamma data.
- Call contracts dominated the flow at roughly 400,000 calls versus fewer than 30,000 puts, and the top-20 contracts traded were all calls — described by the source as 'a very rare thing to see in any options flow.'
- Of approximately $50 million in EWZ premium traded, about $48 million was tied to calls, though ThinkOrSwim data show nearly as many calls were sold as bought, with SpotGamma estimating roughly $26 million likely buyer-initiated.
- Implied volatility in EWZ climbed from 0.28 to 0.39, making options the priciest since late June, a backdrop the source suggests may be motivating call-sellers to collect premium on bets that volatility will dampen.
- The source attributes the Brazilian rally partly to surging commodity prices and partly to optimism around Brazil's general election in October.
Why it matters: EWZ single-day options volume hit six times its 30-day average with $50 million in premium changing hands, an outsized bet on Brazilian equities at a moment when the fund has already outpaced the Nasdaq-100 by 4 percentage points year-to-date. The all-calls top-of-book and rising implied volatility signal that directional conviction is unusually high — but the split between call-buyers and call-sellers means much of the flow may be hedged spread trading rather than pure bullish positioning, a nuance that complicates any read on where EWZ heads next.
Ask SkimNews
