Equity fund gyrations power trading volumes

By

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October 2, 2025

In 2025, investors poured US$27 bn into European equities and sold volatility via US$12 bn flows to income products, while ESG funds witnessed a US$ 17bn rout amid the new political climate, according to Global Trading analysis of Morningstar data.

Our new fund flow visualization, building on data provided by Morningstar; highlights clear allocation tilts in equities in the eight months to August 2025. Readers should be aware that our data focuses on the ten largest flows per category of funds, not every constituent. Broad rolled up category numbers should be read as directional rather than market totals.

European equity focused funds drew in US$27.3bn 2025. The largest recipients were broad European index trackers. Standout funds include Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF (+US$6.0bn, 36.1% of end-2024 AUM), Amundi Core STOXX Europe 600 (+US$4.8bn , +53.4%), iShares Core MSCI Europe (+U$3.6bn, +44.6%), Six Circles Managed Equity Portfolio International Unconstrained (+$2.8bn, +45.3%).

According to BMLL data, trading volumes are reflecting these inflows with year to end of September addressable volumes across European (including UK) equity running at €16.4 trillion versus €12.7 trillion for the same period in 2024 or up 29% year over year.

Derivative-income funds which generate income and protection through selling covered calls continued to draw substantial amounts of investor flows. Demand for income with volatility monetisation was concentrated in a few large vehicles.
JP Morgan income funds invest in higher dividend-paying portfolios for 80% to 90% of their AUM, with the rest in equity linked notes (ELNs), on which they have discretion to sell covered calls, likely adding pressure to out of the money calls on broad based US index.
JP Morgan Nasdaq equity premium income ETF (+$8.8bn, +42.7% of end-2024 AUM) and JP Morgan equity premium income ETF (JEPI) (+$4.6bn, +12.6%) led inflows by a distance.
Rotation into the vehicles has led to increased volume all year with JEPI’s monthly notional average volume have been sustained above US$5bn all year, up 45% year on year.

The other well-known derivatives based JP Morgan funds, the hedged equity funds (JHEQ I, II), that focused attention last year having had US$2bn of inflows on more than US$30bn of AUM and carry outsize collared positions (short a call, long a put spread) is flat on the year but still focus market attention. According to JP Morgan disclosure as of 30 September JHEQ (I and II) is short US$30 bn notional of 5% out of the money (OTM) call on the S&P 500 and long the equivalent of 5% OTM puts as well as smaller exposure for October and November, and a short leg of OTM puts. These are rebalanced monthly and quarterly.

ESG, Healthcare and Energy are out of favours and being actively liquidated.

ESG-labelled equity saw their green bleed away as the new US administration turned against all such endeavours. 21 states in the US have now banned or restricted ESG investing.

Redemptions were concentrated in climate and ecology focused vehicles with US$16.8bn of redemptions seen by Global Trading gin Morningstar data. The largest single outflow was at BlackRock ACS climate transition screened & optimised world equity which saw US$14.7bn of outflows (-86.9% of end-2024 AUM).
A Blackrock spokesperson told Global Trading that this extreme outflow is a technical feature rather than an actual massive redemption;
They said: “These assets remain with BlackRock and will be reallocated within the firm. Clients continually update their asset allocation preferences in order to meet their investment objectives.”

Healthcare focused vehicles also saw large outflows. Redemptions in 2025 are broad-based across active and passive vehicles. Totalling the largest flows in Morningstar data, Healthcare related vehicles has US$17.9bn f redemptions;
Of note, Vanguard health care fund lost US$4.8bn (-11.9% on year end 2024 AUM),and T. Rowe Price health sciences bled US$2.0bn (-15.4%), alongside sizeable withdrawals in passive vehicles like the SPDR healthcare sector funds (–US$2.3bn and –US$1.2bn).
Despite these outflows trading is also sustained in underperforming funds because of investors’ rotation. For example XLV, the health care select sector SPDR fund volumes are up 50% year on year to September to US$35bn.

Energy equity funds were the final notable laggards with US$12.5bn of outflows: Flows were negative across both traditional and clean-energy exposures. The largest outflow was suffered but the energy select sector SPDR fund (–$7.0bn, -20.9%). Clean-energy redemptions included BGF’s sustainable energy fund (~–$0.8bn, -19.2%), Pictet’s clean energy transition (~–$0.6bn ≈16.3%), and Robeco sustainable energy fund (–$0.4bn, 12.3%).

Landry leads German and Austrian markets at Citi

By

Lucy Carter

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October 1, 2025

Sophie Landry, head of markets, Germany and Austria, Citi

Sophie Landry has been named head of markets for Germany and Austria at Citi.

Based in Frankfurt, she reports to European head of markets Fabio Lisanti.

The appointment follows an intense hiring spree at Citi, particularly across APAC.

In Europe, recent hires include Jamie Miller and Abdul Satti, who were named co-heads of electronic execution for EMEA in August.

Landry has three decades of industry experience and joins Citi from the European Investment Bank, where he has been head of portfolio and asset and liability management since May. Prior to this, she was head of treasury portfolio management at the bank.

During her career, Landry has held various senior roles including head of fixed income origination and solutions for Germany, Austria and Switzerland at NatWest Markets and managing director for fixed income solutions across Germany and Austria at Credit Suisse, Nomura International and Lehman Brothers.

Experts pour cold water on HSBC quantum computing ‘breakthrough’

By

Nick Dunbar

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September 30, 2025

The claim by HSBC that noise in an IBM quantum computer helped deliver a 34% improvement in algorithmic trading performance has been disputed by experts, with Scott Aaronson, a leading academic in the field, saying that the finding had “more red flags than a Peoples Liberation Army parade”.

Published to considerable fanfare on 24 September, HSBC’s announcement was lauded by the financial press as a ‘Sputnik moment’. When US markets opened on the same day, IBM’s stock price rose by 5%.

The claimed breakthrough hinges upon the real-time estimation of fill probabilities of requests for quotes (RFQs) from a panel of dealers, which due to the complexity of datasets is best handled by machine learning. While HSBC focused on the algorithmic trading of corporate bonds, the problem is also relevant to equities in areas like block trading, over-the-counter derivatives and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) where RFQs are common.

Standard machine learning algorithms work by identifying features from a training dataset in order to make predictions with test data. Working in conjunction with IBM, the HSBC team used a quantum computer to generate new machine learning features using a superposition of quantum states. Back-testing this output with an area-under-the-curve (AUC) metric, the quantum approach improved on non-quantum approaches by 34%, HSBC claimed.

Yet HSBC conceded in its paper that the observed effect was purely empirical, caused by ‘inherent noise’ in the process with no theoretical foundation. That means the much-touted result is most likely a cherry-picked example of selection bias, according to Aaronson, who is chair of computer science and head of the Quantum Information Centre at the University of Texas.

Speaking to Global Trading, Aaronson said that quantum computing advances over the past 30 years were limited to two areas. “Simulating quantum systems, which might help for example with designing new drugs and materials and industrial processes, and 2) breaking most of the public-key cryptography (such as RSA) that currently protects the Internet”.

“Eventually, there should be some modest benefits for optimization and machine learning problems, including in finance, for example using Grover’s algorithm”, Aaronson explained, with the caveat that speeding up such calculations involved significant hurdles which limited their likely benefits to the distant future. “This is one way we know that people claiming to get such speedups today are almost always lying”.

Describing the HSBC paper as “scientifically risible” and “fatally flawed”, Aaronson added, “the ‘advantage’ is just a strange artifact of the particular methods that they decided to compare—that it has nothing really to do with quantum mechanics in general, or with quantum computational speedup in particular”.

An explanation of why HSBC might have stumbled on algorithmic improvement by accident comes from Morten Hagen, a data science expert who built machine learning models for American Express before launching his own company, Context Technologies. Hagen told Global Trading that a well-known method known as “random resampling with shrinkage” could potentially replicate the noise effect of IBM’s quantum computer. Shrinkage has a long history in the quantitative finance community, particularly in the estimation of covariance matrices.

“This means that you create a much larger dataset, built on the original data. In each ‘draw’ or ‘instance’ you replace some of the feature values with a new ‘sampled’ value that is ‘shrunk’ towards zero”, Hagen said. “Much the same as the quantum ‘black-box’, that would have the effect of normalizing the classical distributions.”

Kepler Cheuvreux promotes Robert Miller and Bobbie Port

By

Etienne Mercuriali

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September 30, 2025

Chris McConville_900x600 — Chris McConville, global head of Execution Services & Trading at Kepler Cheuvreux

Kepler Cheuvreux (KCx) has made changes within its organisational structure for its execution business. Robert Miller has been named global head of equity execution sales, while Bobbie Port takes on the role of global head of low touch and portfolio trading.

Miller joined Kepler Cheuvreux in October 2024 as head of market structure and liquidity solutions. Before that he spent nearly six years at Vanguard, most recently as head of international trading analytics and strategy.

Port has been with KCx for over 14 years, most recently serving as head of electronic distribution, and previously as deputy head of execution sales.

Chris McConville, global head of execution services and trading, said: “The changes will help us further integrate product, market structure, and client coverage, creating an even stronger and more cohesive offering for our clients and ensuring continuity in our new stage of development.”

KCx has been expanding all year making several hires in execution and sales.
Read more: Kepler completes UK hiring

Karppi leads buy-side division at ICMA

By

Lucy Carter

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September 30, 2025

Anita Karppi, senior director, market practice and regulatory policy (MPRP) team, International Capital Market Association’s (ICMA)

Anita Karppi has been named senior director of the International Capital Market Association’s (ICMA) market practice and regulatory policy (MPRP) team.

Based in London, Karppi will oversee the association’s buy-side strategy with a focus on engaging non-traditional asset managers and investors. Working with the Asset Management and Investors Council (AMIC), through secretary Irene Rey, she will represent ICMA and its members as industry best practices and standards are developed.

Karppi has almost 25 years of industry experience, and has been a partner and chief revenue office for know-your-broker company Plia since 2021. During her career, she has led eToro’s ETF strategy, been senior vice president of sales and business development at FlexTrade, held an executive role at Plato Partnership and, most recently, been a consultant at Market Structure Partners. In 2008, she founded the social initiative Buy-side Trading Community (BTC).

US$261bn surge in US secondary issuance dwarfed by $1tr buybacks

By

Etienne Mercuriali

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September 26, 2025

Secondary share issuance by US companies is up by 50% on last year, but the capital raised is only a fraction of the cash being returned to shareholders via buybacks over the same period.

US secondary offerings rose 48% year to date to US$261.6bn, with June to August volumes up 146% to US$115.1bn; Europe climbed 27% to US$72.2bn and APAC 32% to US$61.3bn, while India fell 26% year to date but improved over the summer.

Secondary activity in the United States has accelerated this summer. By end-August, proceeds have reached US$261.6bn, up 48% year on year (YoY), with US$115.1bn printed in June to August alone, up 146%.
Deals got done for mixed purpose: Toronto-Dominion cashed in a legacy stake in Charles Schwab via a US$13.1bn secondary, with Schwab agreeing at the same time to repurchase US$1.5bn of shares from TD.
JAB reduced its holding in Keurig Dr Pepper through a marketed US$ 2.5 bn secondary that followed similar actions in February and October 2024
In early June, Brown & Brown, the insurance broker, issued US$4bn of stock to fund the acquisition of Accession Risk Management Group.
Accelerated book building dominated deal types raising US$84.2 bn, or 59% of total US$ denominated secondary offerings this year.
According to a note by JP Morgan strategy team on 22 September: “S&P 500 companies have announced stock buybacks at an unprecedented rate, with close to $960 billion committed year to date—significantly surpassing the three-year average of $644 billion.”
in 2025, Apple is planning to repurchase US$100 bn of its stock, Alphabet (Google) US$70 bn; Nvidia US$60bn, JPMorgan US$50bn.

European activity firmed from spring levels ; also our reader should note that our dataset does not include right issues offering include the current Orsted jumbo issuance.
Year-to-date proceeds rose to US$72.2bn, 27% above 2024, and the summer window more than doubled to US$23.4bn. Amongst deals, Exor sold around 4% of Ferrari, for about US$3.1 bn in a February accelerated bookbuild, while Ferrari repurchased US$360m of shares from Exor in the ABB.
According to Barclays, buybacks in the Stoxx600 will reach US$250bn this year.

APAC (excluding India and the Middle East) volumes grow year 32% YoY to US$61.3bn with US$23.6bn during summer, up 46%. Deals in APAC are also a mix of sell-downs and company raises: In early March, Japan Post Holdings continued the multi-year government-directed privatisation by selling shares worth US$3.9bn in Japan Post Bank.
Goodman Group , in Australia raised US$2.5bn to fund data-centre growth in February through a direct offering to registered investors.
India’ activity cooled down on the year but reaccelerated during summer. Indian rupee denominated offerings totalled US$25.8bn year to date, down 26%, while June to August volumes rose 11% YoY.
State Bank of India raised $2.9bn in July, via a qualified institutional placement (QIP) to better its capital ratios.
British American Tobacco monetised a 2.5% stake, worth US$1.5bn, in ITC via an accelerated bookbuild in May.
Singtel reduced its Bharti Airtel holding as part of participation reduction selling off US$1.5bn worth of stock in May. Deals were a mix of QIPs, block trades and reg 144A secondary offerings.

Middle East activity was more sporadic. Year-to-date proceeds for secondary offerings sit at US$4.9bn, with a smaller uptick than elsewhere this summer. ADNOC executed two significant deals for market-development reasons: It sold a US$2.84bn stake in ADNOC gas in February with a view to increase free float. In August it places US$317m in ADNOC logistics & services to also raise free float. It said both deals were meant to support MSCI inclusion.
Saudi Arabia lifter the 5% of foreign ownership limits on 24 September.

Our dataset comes from Bloomberg Data aggregated monthly currency-of-issuance basis; “Summer” refers to June to August 2025.

Our dataset does not include rights issues; for context, Europe is currently seeing a jumbo example in Denmark from Ørsted worth US9.4bn. Italgas raised US$1.2 bn via a right issue, Samsung SDI raised US$1.4 bn.

Balkwell joins Pirum

By

Lucy Carter

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September 26, 2025

Zoe Balkwell, head of pre-trade and trading solutions, Pirum

Zoe Balkwell has joined Pirum as head of pre-trade and trading solutions. She is based in London.

Securities finance boutique Pirum reported £34.9 million in revenues for the full year to 31 March 2024, up 19% year-on-year.

Balkwell has more than a decade of industry experience and joins the firm from JP Morgan, where she has been an executive director and EMEA head of flow trading and agency securities since 2020. Prior to this, she was a securities finance trader at State Street.

Cortes swaps Citi for BGC

By

Lucy Carter

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September 26, 2025

Raymond Cortes, equity derivatives sales trader, BGC Group

BGC Group has hired Raymond Cortes as an equity derivatives sales trader, based in New York.

Interdealer broker BGC Group reported US$73.9 million in equities revenues for Q2 2025, up 43.8% year-on-year (YoY).

Cortes has three years of industry experience from Citi, where he has been an institutional FX trader for the past year. Prior to this, he covered equity derivatives sales.

Roe replaces Wyley at Jefferies

By

Lucy Carter

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September 26, 2025

Lucy Roe, vice president of equity sales, Jefferies

Lucy Roe has joined Jefferies as vice president of equity sales. She is based in London.

Roe replaces Lorraine Wyley, who left the firm for a high-touch equity trading role at Goldman Sachs in early September.

Jefferies reported US$250.9 million in equity underwriting revenues for H1 (ending 31 May) – down 45% year-on-year (YoY). The capital market business reported US$935.3 million, up 18% YoY.

Roe has more than five years of experience and joins the firm from HSBC, where she has been a technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) equity sales specialist since 2024. She began her career in a similar position at Berenberg.

US IPOs enjoyed summer surge, prompting heavy trading

By

Etienne Mercuriali

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September 25, 2025

For traders, newly minted stocks are like fireworks that dazzle on their first day as volumes spike, before sputtering out into low-turnover obscurity. The summer of 2025 saw such a flurry of activity as US IPOs reached a record quarterly average volume of US$8bn.

2025 IPO activity has been strong in the US despite the April tariff shock. Priced IPO proceeds reached US$41.3bn year to date through August, up 41% on the same period of 2024, with US$19.8bn, up 61% year on year, of new equity sold to investors over the summer window, June–August.

The year’s largest US deals, according to Bloomberg, are in energy and information technology: Venture Global, the Gulf Coast LNG developer, priced lower than expected in January and raised US$1.8bn after having been scaled back; on the first day of trading, twice the 70-million-share float traded, and the stock has since been trending lower to US$14, with average daily volume (ADV) now at 8.5 million shares a day. Global Trading defines the IPO volume ratio as day-one volume/long-term ADV after day one. For VG this sits at 8.25.

In information technology, CoreWeave, the AI-infrastructure “hyperscaler”, listed in March, also after having been scaled back, and raised US$1bn, trading 41 million shares compared to the offering size of 40 million shares. The stock has traded up all year to US$130, as we write, with increasing participation. Its IPO volume ratio is now 1.3.

Figma, the design-software platform, listed at the end of July and its IPO volume ratio is now 8.05.

Klarna, the “buy now, pay later” platform, raised US$1.4bn earlier in the year, with trading activity fading fast and its IPO volume ratio now up to 16.

European activity has remained subdued despite the European Commission and the British government trying to increase appetite for European capital markets. Priced IPO proceeds totalled US$5.9bn in January to August 2025, down 52% from US$12.2bn in 2024. During the June–August window, issuance accelerated and reached US$1.6bn, 36% higher than the same months last year.

Among the largest deals in Europe, including the UK, according to Bloomberg data, Asker Healthcare priced US$1.0bn worth of stock for 126 million shares on 17 March. Its IPO volume ratio sits at 8.5. HBX Group, the travel-platform operator, sold US$776m on 7 February. Activity in the name faded fast after IPO day and its IPO volume ratio is now 55. Cirsa, the Spanish gambling conglomerate, issued US$533m on 30 June for 34.8 million shares, and trading slowed even further with its IPO volume ratio up to 80. Sectorally, issuance is strikingly different from the US, lacking the prevalence of information-technology names.

Continued steady stream of offerings in APAC, including the Middle East

Asia-Pacific, excluding India and the Middle East, has seen more robust activity all year. As of the end of August, proceeds, according to Bloomberg, were US$13.8bn, up 30% on US$10.7bn in 2024, with summer (June–August) issuance netting US$6.1bn, up 29% year on year. Larger prints covered a variety of sectors: in Japan, JX Metals, which specialises in semiconductor material, sold US$2.88bn worth of stock, selling 535 million shares and trading 176 million shares on its debut day, 10 March, with ADV now up to 28 million shares a day, having lulled after the IPO to about 5 million shares and showing renewed interest. LG CNS, the digital-transformation specialist spun off from LG, listed in Korea on 17 January and raised US$846m, with activity diving and its IPO volume ratio up to 22.

India is the standout country of issuance so far in 2025 in terms of growth. Indian rupee-denominated IPOs raised US$9.63bn year to August, a 67% increase on US$5.77bn in 2024, with a notable summer (June to August) recrudescence of activity of US$5.95bn, up 125% year on year. The largest IPOs include HDB Financial Services, priced 1 July for US$1.49bn for 169 million shares, which traded 80 million shares on its first day; ADV has now cratered and its IPO volume ratio is now up to 80. Carlyle relisted Hexaware Technologies on 18 February, selling US$1.04bn worth of stock in the IT-services company it had taken over in 2020. ADV is now 1 million compared to 18 million on its first day.

In the Middle East—comprising the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman—year to the end of August, proceeds were US$4.6bn, up 80% from US$2.5bn in 2024. The summer window contributed US$1.04bn but was only 9% higher year on year, compared to more marked growth elsewhere.

All figures are in US dollars and reflect currency of issuance, according to Bloomberg. Sectors are classified using MSCI GICS methodology.

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In 2025, investors poured US$27 bn into European equities and sold volatility via US$12 bn flows to income products, while ESG funds witnessed a US$ 17bn rout amid the new political climate, according to Global Trading analysis of Morningstar data.

Sophie Landry has been named head of markets for Germany and Austria at Citi.

The claim by HSBC that noise in an IBM quantum computer helped deliver a 34% improvement in algorithmic trading performance has been disputed by experts, with Scott Aaronson, a leading academic in the field, saying that the finding had “more red flags than a Peoples Liberation Army parade”.

Kepler Cheuvreux (KCx) has made changes within its organisational structure for its execution business. Robert Miller has been named global head of equity execution sales, while Bobbie Port takes on the role of global head of low touch and portfolio trading.

Anita Karppi has been named senior director of the International Capital Market Association’s (ICMA) market practice and regulatory policy (MPRP) team.

Secondary share issuance by US companies is up by 50% on last year, but the capital raised is only a fraction of the cash being returned to shareholders via buybacks over the same period.

US secondary offerings rose 48% year to date to US$261.6bn, with June to August volumes up 146% to US$115.1bn; Europe climbed 27% to US$72.2bn and APAC 32% to US$61.3bn, while India fell 26% year to date but improved over the summer.

Zoe Balkwell has joined Pirum as head of pre-trade and trading solutions. She is based in London.

BGC Group has hired Raymond Cortes as an equity derivatives sales trader, based in New York.

Lucy Roe has joined Jefferies as vice president of equity sales. She is based in London.

For traders, newly minted stocks are like fireworks that dazzle on their first day as volumes spike, before sputtering out into low-turnover obscurity. The summer of 2025 saw such a flurry of activity as US IPOs reached a record quarterly average volume of US$8bn.

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