Options Growth Among Retail Investors 'Absolutely Tremendous': Cboe Global President

Cboe Global Markets, Inc. CBOE has partnered with Robinhood Markets, Inc. HOOD to offer Robinhood customers access to index options, expanding their trading capabilities on its platform. Benzinga's Zunaid Suleman sat down with Cboe's Global President Dave Howson at HOOD Summit 2024 to discuss the partnership.

Growth Of Retail Investors: Howson highlighted the growth of retail investors and the expansion of individual investors’ knowledge and skills in the years before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. He said retail investors are excited and eager for additional market tools. 

"When you look at the last five years the growth and the utilization of retail participants of options has been absolutely tremendous," Howson told Benzinga.

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Robinhood customers will soon be able to trade Cboe's index options on the S&P 500, Cboe Volatility, Russell 2000 and Mini S&P 500 indexes. The index options are part of Cboe's Volatility Toolkit, allowing traders to thrive throughout different market cycles and volatility regimes, Howson said.

"The ability to manage risk, to deploy different trading strategies and hedging strategies, income generation and systematic trading strategies are tremendously important," he said.

Market Education: Cboe offers several educational tools to expand investor knowledge and skill sets. Cboe’s Options Institute offers free online courses, webinars, interactive tutorials and insights from market experts and academics to help retail traders broaden their understanding of index options and build knowledge of the new products. 

"It's about helping with the education, helping with the learning of what the products can actually do for a customer to help manage volatility, manage risk in their portfolio," Howson said. 

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Image: Aaron Thomas