(Bloomberg) -- Traders spent about $55 million on bullish call options at the start of the week in a levered exchange-traded fund tracking China’s benchmark stock index, adding to unusual buying seen on Friday.
More than 200,000 Direxion Daily CSI 300 China A Share Bull 2X Shares (ticker CHAU) calls were bought Monday — allowing the holders to purchase 20 million shares of the ETF any time before mid-May at $15 apiece. At an average price of about $2.64 each, the total premium spent was upwards of $55 million.
Chinese shares in Hong Kong and the mainland rose on Monday as data showed improvement in manufacturing activity, a sign that the economy may be further stabilizing after Beijing began introducing a stimulus package in September.
In US trading, CHAU was unchanged at $15.48. The ETF’s options have typically been thinly traded, with only a couple hundred to a few thousand lots trading in a single day. Volumes have picked up since the beginning of October.
ETFs tracking Chinese stocks saw record outflows last month amid disappointment over China’s stimulus efforts and concern over potential US tariffs.
Monday’s options activity follows buying late last week in an even more bullish fund. On Friday, more than 98,000 contracts of January 2026 $27 calls traded in the Direxion Daily FTSE China Bull 3X Shares ETF (ticker YINN), followed up by another 38,000 lots Monday.
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