SK Hynix options begin trading. But another group of stocks is stealing its thunder

SK Hynix Options debuted Tuesday with less fanfare than expected given the stock’s yearlong rally and a more than 20% gain on Tuesday alone.

About 150,000 options were traded on SK as of midday Tuesday, with more calls than puts, while puts were the most popular directional trade in terms of volume, according to Cboe LiveVol data. Cboe offered five expiration dates: July, August, September, December and a five-month option expiring on the third Friday of March 2027.

Although the volume was higher than the 110,000 contracts traded on the market VanEck Semiconductor fund (SMH)and almost twice the volume sandisk or marvellless than one third of the volume Roundhill memory ETF (DRAM)or MicronAbout 380,000 contracts were traded on Tuesday. Nvidia As of this writing, it has received approximately 2.3 million transactions.

One explanation for the lack of notable buying is that the surge in single-stock ETFs and leveraged funds with exposure to South Korean chip sentiment has stolen much of the speculative spotlight on SK Hynix’s US listing and subsequent options.

Nearly a dozen ETF issuers have filed for SK-affiliated leveraged single-stock funds, most of which began trading on Tuesday. There is also great success with the DRAM ETF, which currently has $23 billion in assets, with SK Hynix being the third largest holding.

“These ETFs — double long, double short — maybe there’s a lot of demand that’s been taken away from them, but I’m confident we’ll see an increase in volume when they list the weekly releases,” said Scott Bauer, CEO of Chicago-based Prosper Trading Academy.

The two largest trades in the session appeared to be a single trader selling more than 2,200 of the 180-strike calls expiring on July 17; these were nearly lucrative contracts, bringing in $9 a piece for sales of roughly $2 million.

The top seven single trades by volume were all trending downward, according to LiveVol.