👀 Even Citadel Securities is watching

Citadel Securities knows what’s up. It’s the designated market maker on the NYSE and, per the company, represents about 62% of listings on the exchange. And it’s seeing something it hasn’t seen in years.

• The trading giant is keeping a “close eye” on the same thing we’re keeping a close eye on: retail traders driving eye-popping moves in the likes of Opendoor Technologies, which traded more than Meta on Monday only to fall 10% on Tuesday after a real heater, a six-session streak.

• On Monday, trades of 521 million shares in Opendoor took place on the ask side (the lowest price a seller is willing to accept, indicating a motivated buyer) versus volumes of 480 million on the bid. On Tuesday, volumes on bid side outnumbered those on the ask, per Bloomberg data. 

• And then there’s Kohl’s, which doubled minutes into the session on Tuesday and set a new record for daily volumes traded less than 25 minutes after the market opened, before paring much of its gains.

“Echoing our colleagues in institutional derivatives this morning, the current level of retail bullishness is something to keep a close eye on,” Citadel Securities’ Thomas Sozzi wrote. “In cash equity space, retail clients on our platform have been net buyers for the past 18 trading sessions in a row! This bullish streak hasn’t been seen on our platform in over 3 years.”

The Takeaway

Things are getting wild out there. Again, take Opendoor for example. The options flows were still overwhelmingly tilted toward calls — calls outnumbered puts by about 1.9:1 Tuesday versus roughly 2:1 on Monday — but the most active option traded on Opendoor was a put with a strike price of $2.50 that expires on Friday. When flows are more of the story than fundamentals, it’s this relatively boring tallying of motivated buying versus motivating selling that can give a clue as to how much momentum a move has and whether it’s at risk of reversing.

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(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions. Citadel Securities has a business relationship with Robinhood.)

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the first ethereum ETF listing in the US. How fast these little funds grow! In fact, ethereum ETFs now hold $15.7 billion in assets under management and the pace of adoption has picked up recently, buoyed by several factors including the GENIUS Act’s passage. Last week, ethereum ETFs saw a record $2.12 billion in inflows, nearly double its previous record of $1.2 billion, leading the funds to their best month on record. And July’s not even over! 

The second-place crypto (in terms of market cap, behind bitcoin) had a second-place ETF start (also behind bitcoin, whose ETF celebrated its birthday earlier this year). While ethereum may never dominate the space as bitcoin has and does, it does have some unique factors that may help it catch up, quick:

• Ethereum will benefit greatly from the growth in tokenization and the regulatory clarity surrounding stablecoins through the GENIUS Act. The stablecoin market cap stands at $262 billion, and stablecoins on the ethereum blockchain take the lion’s share with a $130 billion piece of the pie, which will likely grow from here. 

• Staking also has a part to play. As of now, ethereum ETFs are not allowed to stake, or lock up their tokens to secure the network and earn rewards. (Think of it as earning interest for committing your cash to a CD.) If the SEC allows staking within ETFs, it could put the billions in these ETFs to work. As the CEO of Blueprint Finance told us, “Once institutions can access both price appreciation and network rewards through a regulated wrapper, that changes the entire institutional conversation.”

The Takeaway

It’s not just ethereum ETFs that are having a moment, but ethereum overall. From a wave of ethereum treasury companies like SharpLink and BitMine popping up to Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest shifting its portfolio to increase exposure to ethereum and the asset itself hitting price levels it hasn’t seen in many months, it’s been a good run for the asset, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

Read more.

From God to Gordon Gekko: How greed became good

Paul Vigna’s “The Almightier” asks the question: how did the pursuit of wealth evolve from being the root of all evil to not just a virtue, but the central incentive of our entire culture? He sat down with Sherwood News to discuss why Western ideas about money are outdated and if there’s any societal benefit to crypto. 

Read our first Talk Your Book feature.

• Despite releasing preliminary second-quarter results showing a big operating loss, Oscar Health rose 8%

• EV maker Lucid rose double digits after announcing that owners of its Air sedan would be able to access Tesla’s charging network before the month is out

• Philip Morris slid over 8% despite an earnings beat as cracks start to show in its Zyn business

• IQVIA rose nearly 18% after the provider of clinical research services to the pharmaceutical industry posted stronger-than-expected Q2 earnings

• Lockheed Martin slipped after an unexpected $1.6 billion charge led to a big Q2 earnings miss

• Here’s how much traders think Google and Tesla are poised to move after today’s earnings reports 

• And here’s the most insane trading day for Opendoor yet, charted

• But Wall Street is starting to quietly warn about the stock market

• Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley forecast a $70 billion boost for megacap tech companies from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act

• Over in Canada, a tiny biotech company bought 2,000 shares of GameStop for an unusual reason