Flere finanshuse og amerikanske erhvervsmedier advarer nu om, at der under den rolige aktiemarkedsoverflade er opbygget en usædvanlig høj grad af gearing — altså investering for lånte penge eller via produkter, der forstærker markedsbevægelser. Det gælder især gearede ETF’er, optionsstrategier, futures og total return swaps.
Budskabet er, at markedet kan se stabilt ud på overfladen, men at der underliggende er kommet så meget lånefinansieret spekulation, at en mindre negativ markedsbevægelse kan udløse en selvforstærkende nedtur.
Hvad er det, der sker?
Amerikanske gearede og inverse ETF’er nu har omkring 200 mia. dollar i AUM, men svarer til omtrent 400 mia. dollar i markedsmæssig eksponering. Det betyder, at den reelle risiko er langt større end de penge, investorerne formelt har placeret.
Handelsvolumen i gearede ETF’er i 2026 ligger omkring 50 pct. over 2025-niveauet på samme tidspunkt af året. Det viser, at interessen for spekulative, forstærkede markedsprodukter ikke bare er høj, men accelererende.
Samtidig peger analysen på, at denne gearing ikke længere kun er et detailinvestor-fænomen. Institutionelle investorer, hedgefonde og banker er også involveret gennem futures, swaps og andre finansielle konstruktioner.
Hvorfor er det vigtigt?
Problemet er ikke gearing i sig selv, men at mange aktører samtidig bruger gearing i de samme populære aktier og sektorer — især teknologi, halvledere og memory-aktier.
Det skaber en sårbar situation:
Når markedet stiger, køber gearede produkter og strategier mere.
Når markedet falder, kan de blive tvunget til at sælge.
Dermed kan både opturen og nedturen blive forstærket.
Analysen beskriver det som en potentiel selvforstærkende feedback-loop, hvor stigende kurser tiltrækker mere gearing, som igen presser kurserne op — indtil finansieringsomkostninger, margin calls eller faldende likviditet vender processen.
Den vigtigste advarsel
Den centrale advarsel er, at funding costs — altså prisen for at finansiere gearede positioner — er steget kraftigt. På side 3 vises en graf over “Equity Funding Costs”, som er steget til meget høje niveauer.
Det betyder, at det er blevet dyrere og vanskeligere for markedets aktører at holde store lånefinansierede positioner. Hvis omkostningerne bliver for høje, kan nogle aktører blive tvunget til at reducere risiko — dvs. sælge aktier, lukke positioner eller nedbringe gearing.
Klare konklusioner
1. Markedet er mere skrøbeligt, end kursudviklingen antyder.
Selv om aktiemarkedet kan virke roligt eller stærkt, viser analysen, at der under overfladen er opbygget store gearede positioner.
2. Risikoen er koncentreret i få populære aktier.
Efterspørgslen er især knyttet til store tech-, halvleder- og memory-aktier. Det gør markedet sårbart, fordi en korrektion i netop disse aktier kan få bredere konsekvenser.
3. Detailinvestorer og institutionelle investorer forstærker hinanden.
Analysen peger på, at private investorers køb af gearede ETF’er påvirker dealerne og bankernes kapacitet til at stille finansiering til rådighed. Dermed flyder risikoen videre ind i det professionelle marked.
4. Bankerne nærmer sig kapacitetsgrænser.
Når dealerne får sværere ved at levere finansiering eller afdækning, stiger funding spreads. Det kan være et tidligt faresignal om, at systemet er under pres.
5. En vending kan blive hurtig.
Hvis likviditeten tørrer ud, eller hvis finansieringsomkostningerne bliver for høje, kan gearede positioner blive afviklet i hast. Det kan sende aktierne ned hurtigere, end fundamentale forhold alene ville tilsige.
Forventede konsekvenser
Den mest sandsynlige konsekvens er højere volatilitet. Selv uden en egentlig krise kan markedet få større intradag-bevægelser og mere nervøse udsving.
Dernæst kan der komme pres på de mest populære teknologiaktier, især hvis investorer begynder at reducere risiko i halvleder- og AI-relaterede aktier.
En tredje konsekvens er, at banker og market makere kan stramme vilkårene for finansiering. Det kan gøre det dyrere at holde gearede positioner og dermed tvinge flere investorer til at nedbringe eksponering.
I et mere negativt scenarie kan markedet opleve en gearing-afvikling, hvor faldende kurser udløser tvungne salg, som igen presser kurserne yderligere ned. Analysen sammenligner dette med et “house of cards”-scenarie, hvor kædereaktionen først stopper, når gearing og risiko er blevet markant reduceret.
Analysen siger ikke nødvendigvis, at et aktiekrak er nært forestående. Den siger derimod, at risikoen for et pludseligt og kraftigt tilbageslag er steget, fordi en stor del af opturen nu synes drevet af gearing, spekulative produkter og koncentreret efterspørgsel i få aktier.
Den praktiske konklusion er, at investorer bør være varsomme med at tolke den aktuelle markedsro som et tegn på lav risiko. Tværtimod kan roen dække over en markedsstruktur, hvor mange investorer er positioneret ens — og hvor udgangen kan blive smal, hvis stemningen vender.
Uddrag fra WSJ, Bloomberg, Goldman og Zerohedge
Two weeks ago, we were among the first to point out something remarkable: at a time when retail leverage (upon even more leverage, thanks to options) was already at nosebleed levels, as demonstrated by the following chart of levered/inverse ETF AUM hovering at around $200 billion, and representing roughly $400 billion in net exposure (the product of ETF AUM and leverage ratio)…
… amid a bonkers explosion in levered ETF trading volumes, which even the WSJ noticed overnight in “The Trillion-Dollar Borrowing Binge Lifting the Stock Market to Risky Heights“…
… the levered frenzy had also spread to institutions, where as we showed on June 15, the S&P funding cost (by dealers lending out futures and Total Return Swaps, cough Archegos cough, to institutional clients) had blown out to historic levels.
Fast forward two weeks later, when it has gotten much worse.
As Goldman futures trading specialist Robert Quinn writes in latest must read Goldman Weekly Rundown note (available to pro subs), an unprecedented jump in equity funding costs pushed the dealer leverage to record mid-year levels this week, with the September SPX TRF printing as high as FF+127.5bp on Friday (see chart 1 below).”
According to Quinn, the seemingly insatiable demand for leverage in Asia – and by Asia he means Korea where as we showed last night, one of the top 10 charts of this decade is the one showing the batshit insane move in the Kospi, which as Goldman also said over the weekend, has “turned into a giant, self-reinforcing feedback loop” – has been central to this move.
Just as remarkable, the two – retail and institutional – are tied. According to Goldman, those same retail flows into levered ETFs we highlighted above, have pushed dealers’ capacity to lend exposure to the most in-demand names (e.g. SK Hynix, Samsung, and TSMC) to the limit, often using Total Return Swaps (recall that Korea has been too little, too late cracking down on Total Return Swaps – unsuccessfully – in hopes of controlling runaway market leverage as we described in “Banks Curb FOMO-Chasing Levered Bets On Korean Tech Firms“).
This morning, Bloomberg also caught up on this topic, writing “that the surge in market leverage, stemming in part from the massive growth of levered exchange-traded products, retail margin accounts and hedge fund deposits at prime brokers, is stoking worries that it may exacerbate the next crisis. The demand to borrow money has driven an unusual mid-year spike in financing costs, which have reached the highest levels since December 2024.”
“Leverage has become one of the defining themes for investors,” said Andy Kent, a broker at Kyte. “Margin debt is elevated, borrowing across parts of the shadow banking system continues to expand.”
Echoing what we said two weeks ago, Bloomberg writes that the CME’s S&P 500 Index adjusted interest rate (AIT) total return futures (TRF) have climbed to levels last seen in late 2024, “when a similar combination of large long futures positions and a sustained market rally was exacerbated by banks’ year-end constraints.” As a reminder, early 2025 – right after the last AIT TRF leverage bubble popped – was not pretty for stocks.
“The cost of funding for US markets has exploded, reflecting a perfect storm between leveraged ETF growth, extended long futures positioning, IPO/ADR programs tying up bank capital and prime brokerage growth,” said Kent.
Concern that higher interest rates will strangle the record rally in tech stocks as inflation bubbles up has some investors hedging with dual binary and other “light” exotic options. According to Bloomberg, banks are seeing healthy customer flows on both sides of the major macro themes across popular cross-asset pairs.
As we warned last week in “BofA Desk Warns Nasdaq Crossing “Bubble Threshold”, Recommends Trade To Hedge Unwind“, Raphael Cyna, global head of payoff structuring at Bank of America warns that “Initially, investors were playing the stagflation scenario of equity down, rates up, which put pressure on the implied correlation on the pair.” That attracted some traders to put on the reverse trade, to play “equity down, rates down as a very cheap, recession hedge where bonds act as the more traditional safe haven,” he added.
Banks are continuing to market new variations on the hybrid structures. JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists led by Bram Kaplan recently recommended S&P 500 call options contingent on higher interest rates, a trade that allows investors to take advantage of the correlation between the two nearing multi-year lows.
Banks are continuing to market new variations on the hybrid structures. JPMorgan’s Bram Kaplan recently recommended S&P 500 call options contingent on higher interest rates, a trade that allows investors to take advantage of the correlation between the two nearing multi-year lows.
It gets worse: as we discussed last week, the strong performance in the small handful of market-leading names (semis and memory) over the last few months has also led to significant, organic AUM growth for levered ETFs which would ordinarily suffer more AUM “decay” from their daily rebalances (recall that levered ETFs are short gamma – they buy on up days and sell on down days to maintain leverage ratios).
The Goldman Futures desk laconically notes that it is “interesting” to note that the relatively narrow breadth of in demand names has led to wider funding spreads across different index futures within the same region. For example, the chart below shows the spread in implied funding rates between SPX and RTY – the spread is at multi-year highs as demand for funding in info tech names has outpaced demand for small caps.
The bank concludes that “all eyes will be on these markets” as we approach quarter end tomorrow, and warns that “if May is the right analogue, we could see another leg higher in funding levels.”
While that is surely likely, the take home message is that the transmission of the leverage retail investors have been taking on to chase the memory bubble has moved from single stocks, to options, to levered ETFs (all with progressively greater short gamma) and has hit the final frontier: dealer leverage, which has its limits. And the answer when the whole DRAM/levered ETF/Memory bubble house of cards comes crashing down is simple: when the dealer funding spread, already at record highs, becomes unbearable to one or more counterparties, and liquidity yanked, sending the entire leverage chain in reverse… and risk crashing down.
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