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The Constant March of Time
October has a vibe. As L.M. Montgomery put it in Anne of Green Gables: “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
I am too – though I only love half of it. Early October in Chicago is perfect: crisp mornings, playoff baseball and, this year, the magic of Wrigley with my 10-year-old son. But as the days shorten and the trees bare, I can’t help feeling that faint melancholy that comes with decay – nature’s reminder that time is always marching.
Watching daylight slip away each fall reminds me of how elastic time can feel – stretched, compressed, sometimes inverted altogether. Even the universe plays with time’s rhythm…
Condensing Seasons (Years into Days)
On Mercury, one solar day (sunrise to sunrise) is longer than a year on Earth (full rotation around the sun). Put differently, Mercury revolves around the sun in 88 Earth days, but sunup to sunup takes 176 days. The day is longer than the year.
In markets, we’ve created our own version of Mercury time. Derivatives trading has compressed “years into days.” Short-dated options now dominate volume, where traders measure opportunity not in months or quarters, but in hours.
There’s no shortage of coverage around the boom in this activity. We’re now three years on from the first week with index options expiring every trading day. Continued growth is a testament to broader appreciation of cash settled products, increased opportunities to monetize option-based strategies, and (in my estimation) a feedback loop that’s allowed individual traders to refine their approaches with precision.
The visual below shares a handful of interesting points. Average daily Nasdaq-100 Index® (NDX®) volume has surged roughly sevenfold since early 2020. Even more striking, short-dated contracts now make up a growing share of total volume – proof that traders are living more and more ‘in the moment.’
Source: OCC, Nasdaq Economic Research
Markets evolve alongside people, environments and all living things. Change is constant.
Big Tents
The rise of daily index options has built a bigger tent for derivatives – more flexible, more inclusive. One dominated by institutions managing vast risk, the market now thrives on individual traders using risk-defined strategies. Their edge lies not in guessing direction, but in understanding probability, repetition and the law of large numbers.
Ends and New Beginnings
Few embody the industry’s evolution better than Tom Sosnoff. A floor trader turned educator and tech builder. He helped translate the art of risk into accessible mechanics for millions. His work – and that of Scott Sheridan, JJ Kinahan and countless others – reminds us that time’s passage isn’t decay; it’s renewal. Each generation stands on the shoulders of those who adapted before them.
Thank you is entirely insufficient, but it’s extended sincerely.
To hear more about Tom (and Scott’s) 45 years of evolution, check out his recent interview on The Compound and Friends.
Here’s to learning, building and evolving with friends.
“Isn’t it beautiful to think so.”
The Sun Also Rises.
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