As the philosopher said: "Just because you can doesn't mean you should."
From the Wall Street Journal, March 13:
A new generation of investors doesn’t want to wait for the traditional market open
While traditional energy investors spent the past weekend counting down the minutes until futures markets reopened on Sunday, overseas crypto traders were already placing their bets on the direction of oil prices.
The cryptocurrency exchange Hyperliquid lists perpetual futures, a highly speculative flavor of derivatives, tracking West Texas Intermediate crude—the U.S. benchmark—and other commodities. And like other crypto-native contracts, perpetual futures trade 24/7.
This past Saturday evening, about 20 hours before mainstream derivatives markets opened, WTI perpetual futures on Hyperliquid rocketed to about $96 a barrel, up from the $90.90 closing price for regular oil futures on Friday afternoon. Perpetual futures, or perps, never expire and don’t have a strike price, the point at which contracts are exercised. They also give traders access to extreme leverage that can amplify their profits—or cost them their entire investment.
At the moment, U.S. residents aren’t able to access Hyperliquid, and the exchange’s oil-futures trades still account for less than a drop in the barrel. In the global commodities markets, millions of energy contracts have changed hands daily since the war with Iran unfolded. But the crypto exchange’s oil perps, listed for the first time in January, offer a glimpse of a future where traditional and digital finance converge—and all forms of assets can be traded at any moment.
Wall Street is already racing to transform stocks and other traditional assets into tokens using the digital-ledger technology that underpins bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Like digital assets and prediction markets, the so-called tokenized stocks are increasingly capturing a younger generation of investors who want to trade 24/7 and react to geopolitical events and corporate breaking news in real-time.
“You don’t need to wait until Monday for markets to open and everyone to move,” said Hyunsu Jung, chief executive of crypto firm Hyperion DeFi. “That is shifting the paradigm in terms of what serious players can do when events happen over the weekend.”
Since the start of the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes in Iran, many traders have flocked to Hyperliquid to buy or sell oil perpetuals. That has led to rapid growth in the oil markets on the exchange, which also offers contracts tracking Brent, the international oil benchmark. Within days, the cumulative volume on the exchange’s oil futures surged to about $7.3 billion on Thursday from $339 million on Feb. 28, according to crypto data provider Kaiko.
On Sunday, Kaiko analyst Laurens Fraussen started betting against the oil perps on Hyperliquid. In his view, the price of oil had reached unsustainable levels. He was right: On Monday, oil futures pulled back below $100 after President Trump said that the war with Iran was “very complete, pretty much.” Brent ended up rising 11% this week to $103.14 a barrel. U.S. benchmark WTI gained 8.6% to $98.71.
Round-the-clock trading is a feature already familiar to crypto investors. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be bought or sold on weekends in the U.S. Overseas, tokenized stocks and derivatives are available on platforms such as Robinhood Markets and Kraken. Hyperliquid listed gold and silver perpetual contracts recently, just as those precious metals experienced unusual volatility. Both metals surged to record highs before experiencing a massive crash, while bitcoin is stuck trading in a range.
“Crypto traders have a short attention span, so they want to see quick returns and they want to see volatility,” said Fraussen....
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From the dark ages of high beta (2014) - For Investors With The Attention Span of a Gnat: "Looking for Action? S&P 1500 Most Volatile Stocks"
Which reminds me, it may be time for a reboot of this one:
Welcome to Short-Attention-Span Television: "Inside Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Plan to Revolutionize Entertainment on Mobile Screens"
Also:
Questions America Wants Answered: Why Is the Speed of Light So Slow?Possibly related:
- The Business Of Instant Gratification Appears to Have Promise
- "As the Economy Gets Ever Better at Satisfying our Immediate, Self-serving Needs, Who is Minding the Future?"
- So You Think You Know Market Structure: "Bitcoin, ethereum and ripple: a fractal and wavelet analysis"
- "How To Break the Information Age Trance of 'Continuous Partial Attention'"
- McKinsey: "Our gambling culture--The craving for immediate gratification has spread well beyond Wall Street."
- "The Rise of the On-Demand Economy"
- Consumer Apps: On-Demand Economy Jumps the Shark
