{"id":869735,"date":"2026-06-15T22:05:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T22:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/869735\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T22:05:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T22:05:32","slug":"wall-streets-fear-gauge-tumbles-as-traders-bid-up-spacex-shares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/869735\/","title":{"rendered":"Wall Street’s fear gauge tumbles as traders bid up SpaceX shares"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpaceX advertisements are seen on a digital billboard on a building in Times Square to celebrate the launch of SpaceX’s initial public offering (IPO) in New York on June 12, 2026. <\/p>\n

Angela Weiss | Afp | Getty Images<\/p>\n

There’s nothing quite like traders gobbling up $2 trillion of new equity to squash the fear out of the market.<\/p>\n

Just 10 days ago, tech was nosediving, the stock market had its worst day since October 2025, and the Cboe Volatility Index<\/a> was ramping up in a hurry \u2014 in part on investor concerns about how the market could digest the deluge in new SpaceX<\/a> stock. Now, with the biggest initial public offering in history digested without a hiccup, investors are piling back into the very same stocks they previously sold, and Wall Street’s so-called “fear gauge” is back below its long-term average.<\/p>\n

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon\"hide<\/p>\n

The CBOE Volatility Index in the past month<\/p>\n

The Nasdaq 100<\/a> jumped 3% Monday. The S&P 500<\/a> was last up about 1.7%, nearing the record reached earlier this month, as semiconductors<\/a> surge to the front again, adding more than 4% to a new all-time high. Bears who argued that speculators were running out of appetite are now faced with a SpaceX market cap of almost $2.5 trillion that says otherwise. SpaceX shares were last up 13% on Monday.<\/p>\n

“Although the SPX Index advanced by a modest 0.7% last week, the VIX Index declined far greater than expected due in large part to the unwind of protective next-12-months hedges and downside convexity positions,” Ed Tom, senior director of derivatives market intelligence at Cboe, wrote in a note to clients Monday.<\/p>\n

The VIX traded below 16 at its low Monday, a complete unwind of the pop in volatility that started June 5 when the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH)<\/a> fell more than 10% from its record. While options flows in the chip stocks still show significant hedging activity, trading around the VIX points to a more bullish outlook for stocks.<\/p>\n

More puts traded than calls in VIX Monday, with almost as many calls sold as bought, according to data from ThinkOrSwim. Of the $93 million in options premium traded, more than $70 million was tied to puts, SpotGamma data show. The most popular contract by volume was the 16-strike put expiring Wednesday that traded 46,000 contracts.<\/p>\n

In SMH, flows continued to lean bearish, as they have for weeks, despite semiconductors making an all-time high. With stock indexes now holding more semiconductors than ever, perhaps this month’s whipsaw has investors paying up for hedges. While roughly 60% of premiums in SMH was in puts, there were notable put-spread sellers. This includes the biggest trader of the day, who collected $5 million selling two big put spreads expiring July 17, then spent $2.7 million getting long the 600\/550 spread expiring the same day.<\/p>\n

Options traders will have plenty to digest on Tuesday when SpaceX options list. Options in Tesla have long been a favorite among retail traders and are consistently among the most active single-stock derivatives.<\/p>\n

Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SpaceX advertisements are seen on a digital billboard on a building in Times Square to celebrate the launch…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":869736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[133,81,37684,51,250818,135,12864,50,145,59001,141,52,146],"class_list":["post-869735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-business-news","tag-cboe-volatility-index","tag-headlines","tag-invesco-qqq-trust","tag-markets","tag-nasdaq-100-index","tag-news","tag-sp-500-index","tag-space-exploration-technologies-corp","tag-tesla-inc","tag-top-stories","tag-vaneck-semiconductor-etf"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116756396383626350","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}