Traders Pile Into BlackRock Bond ETF Options as Treasury Yields Hit Two-Decade Highs

Bloomberg··US·Read original
3▲3 ▼0Impact / 5
Summary · why it matters

Traders are piling into options tied to fixed-income ETFs at a record pace as yields on 10-year and 30-year Treasuries sit at the highest in two decades. Options trading volume on BlackRock Inc.'s iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF, ticker TLT, is soaring, with the 20-day average hitting the highest level ever for the exchange-traded fund, while open interest has more than doubled over the past year and is closing in on the record of 13.55 million contracts reached prior to monthly expiration last week. Implied volatility and the premium for bearish puts on TLT have jumped to the highest since late March as investors pay up for protection against, or for wagers on, higher yields. The spike in options volumes over the last week has extended to BlackRock's iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF, LQD, and the firm's iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF, HYG. Steve Laipply, global co-head of BlackRock's iShares Fixed Income ETFs, said options on those exposures are becoming increasingly popular because they provide access to exposures that would be difficult to replicate efficiently in the underlying bond market, and Alex Kosoglyadov, head of flow equity derivative sales at Nomura Holdings, said traditional equity investors are starting to look more and more at these rate products.

Impact on assets 4

Digital Finance & Tokenization▲ · 1 stocks
BlackRock Inc
BLK
▲ PositiveDemandrelevance

Record options volume on BlackRock's TLT, LQD and HYG ETFs signals surging investor demand for its fixed-income products.

Financials▲ · 1 stocks
Others▲ · 2 stocks
© 2026 MarketIVNews