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US stock market options expirations
Date: Friday, August 15, 2025
- Event: Monthly U.S. equity options expiration (standard options expire on the third Friday of each month).
- No quadruple witching: August is not a quarterly expiration month, so only single-stock and index options expire—not futures.
- When stock options expire, hedging and position adjustments by large institutions (market makers, hedge funds) can cause higher volatility and trading volume, particularly in the last hours of the session—known as “options expiration dynamics”.
Expected Market Behavior Around August 15
Increased Volatility and Volume
- Traders close or roll positions to avoid assignment.
- Hedging activity from options dealers can create sharp price swings.Liquidity is often high near the close, but order flow can push stocks toward key strike prices.
Pin Risk and Strike Price Magnet
- Stocks with large open interest at specific strike prices often “pin” near those levels as expiration approaches.
- Example: If a stock has heavy open interest at $100, price action may gravitate toward $100 on expiration day.
Index and ETF Impact
- Index options (like SP500 or Nasdaq) also expire, so S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures might see volatility as hedges unwind.
- This can spill over into broad market ETFs such as SPY and QQQ.
Expiration Week Effect
- Historically, the week of options expiration often shows above-average returns early in the week and choppy price action on Friday.
- The day after expiration (Monday) often experiences weaker returns as the market normalizes.
Trading Considerations
- Be cautious with stop-losses near key strike prices; price action may be erratic.
- Expect liquidity to cluster near popular strikes (especially in large-cap stocks and major ETFs).
- Watch VIX and implied volatility—they often decline after expiration.
- Consider rolling or closing options positions early if you don’t want assignment risk. (from the internet)
US500 1 HOUR CHART
US economic data, specifically inflation, have been the big market movers this week so keep an eye on
Retail Sales
University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment (watch the inflation expectations)
See our Economic Data Calendar
GBPUSD Technical Analysis – The dovish bets keep the greenback on the backfoot The USD came under some renewed pressure following the US CPI report. The data was mostly in line with forecasts and not strong enough to deter the market from expecting a cut in September.
A September cut looks unavoidable now and only a hot NFP report in September might get us to a 50% probability, although it would certainly diminish expectations for rate cuts after the September one. For August, we have now just Fed Chair Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium as the next major event.
Traders will be eager to see if he changes his stance as well.
On the GBP side, the BoE delivered a hawkish cut last week GBPUSD Daily On the daily chart, we can see that GBPUSD has rallied all the way up to the key swing level at 1.3590.
This is where we can expect the sellers to step in with a defined risk above the level to position for a drop back into the 1.3368 level.
The buyers, on the other hand, will want to see the price breaking higher to increase the bullish bets into the 1.38 handle next.
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