Micron earnings could jolt markets — and a new ETF may fuel volatility

A new ETF seeking to leverage Micron’s volatility has emerged – right in the nick of time

After the massive success of the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) – a fund that’s gathered more than $22 billion in less than three months and has more than doubled in value since its April debut – asset manager Roundhill Investments, alongside REX Shares and Tuttle Capital Management, launched a new offering on Wednesday. The Roundhill T-REX 2X Long DRAM Daily Target ETF (RAM) is a 2x levered version of DRAM that began trading at around $24 per share.

The launch capitalizes not just on the popularity of Micron Technology as a stock and options favorite among investors after a 700% one-year rally, but also the growing popularity of leveraged funds and traders’ general comfort, if not preference, to be in volatile products tied to the artificial intelligence boom.

Micron is set to report earnings Wednesday night, and you’d be hard-pressed to find an investor that doesn’t have some exposure to the stock in one form or another.

It’s now the fourth-biggest holding in the $73 billion VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), a 28% weight in the DRAM ETF, and 8% of the roughly $30 billion levered fund Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X ETF (SOXL). It’s also among the top 10 largest companies in the S&P 500. At a market cap just below $1.2 trillion, Micron regularly trades billions of dollars in options per day, with $1.4 billion already traded in Wednesday’s session.

“For the next 48 hours the market and Micron are basically the same,” said Zed Francis, CIO at Chicago-based Convexitas, who runs a semiconductor options strategy.

Leveraged ETFs, the most popular of which target tech companies that have powered the bull market, bring daily rebalancing flows regularly in excess of $20 billion, according to an analysis from Barclays equities tactical strategies.

That could exacerbate swings in the market around big events like Micron earnings, where traders currently expect a 10% swing. Implied volatility in the stock is 111, the highest in the S&P 500 alongside memory peer Sandisk.

“Sometimes better to be lucky than good, but launching the day Micron reports: This is the most important earnings report for the whole market that we’ve seen in a while,” Dave Mazza, CEO of Roundhill, said by phone.

There’s also the South Korean stock market, where memory-makers SK Hynix and Samsung account for around 40% of market cap. Volatility of 92 is relatively cheaper in the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY).

On Wednesday morning, one trader in that fund put on a bullish “risk reversal” trade. They sold $1.2 million worth of the 170-strike EWY puts expiring July 17, then bought $700,000 worth of the 240-strike calls, betting on a 23% rally by the same date.