In the final week of May 2026 ending on the 29th, volume trends in Leverage Shares’ products across 3 exchanges across Europe – the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the Borsa Italiana (BITA) and Germany’s XETRA – indicated wariness. The LSE in the United Kingdom experienced a decline of over 21% in traded volume over the prior week, as short Intel conviction unwound and rotated into short Semiconductors.

Italy witnessed a 51% decline in traded volumes while participation initiated into a distinct automotive theme. Conviction spanned the breadth of most major products – rendering into the most analytically significant reading of all three exchanges.

Germany mirrored the United Kingdom with a 20% week-on-week decline in volume. However, the overall picture is a clean structural positioning marked by the very same wariness expressed via shorts on South Korea and Taiwan, the collapse of a preliminary positioning on Long China Tech (3KWB) established in the previous week, and an eruption in crypto-proxies such as the Long Microstrategy (MST3) as Bitcoin climbed.

Momentum and Regimes

In the United Kingdom, the massive surge in the -3x Short Intel (INTS) witnessed a massive petering out in the final week but ended the momentum leading the league table for the month.

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Source: Leverage Shares analysis

The sustained – and structural – interest in short products on semiconductors and AI names is a particularly interesting feature, given the fact that these two corners of the market rose throughout the month of May. This interest is best explained as protection as opposed to opportunity. It is generally estimated that sophisticated investors have been steadily scaled up cheap hedges against their investments in their thematic investments.

Meanwhile, Italy showed unparalleled dramatic growth of both volume and conviction across the month of May.

Source: Leverage Shares analysis

Interest in INTS follows some of the same conviction as seen in the United Kingdom. However, the rising interest – out of comparative dormancy – in 3RAC is a singular standout feature. The trigger was this is likely to be the decline in Ferrari’s stock valuation following the poorly-received launch of its EV model. Ferrari can essentially be described as the producer of the epitome of Veblen goods – lower volumes tend to bring about higher prices (and profits). Italians know their luxury goods and the positioning in 3RAC can be explicated as being a sign of resilient opportunism in the notion that stock price is bound to spring back.

Now, Italian investors have long leaned strongly on crypto-proxies in the Leverage Shares catalogue. Despite some shaving of volumes in the penultimate week of May, volumes in 3MST rose in tandem with Bitcoin. Simultaneously, trends in SSPY as well as GPTS have a hard-wired sophisticated logic: hedging.

Germany, meanwhile, shows the highest resilience in conviction about the fragility of present market trajectory.

Source: Leverage Shares analysis

The final week of May saw volumes spike in SKOR and 3TSA potentially under the same thematic assumption: the ongoing overvaluation of the AI Hype. The underlying instruments for both these products are dominated by manufacturers of AI-relevant hardware such as chips and memory. The positioning in these instruments is institutional-grade hedging borne out of resilient conviction that protection would be needed for the (arguably inevitable) collapse. A similar thematic argument lies heavy across QQ3S and 3SSM.

The flight into TLT5 is also a textbook institutional response made under the notion that rates will stay higher for longer and that Asian economies will remain under strain from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Acceleration Trends

In terms of volumes for the week, LSE traded nearly seven times the volume that Italy’s BITA did which, in turn were 2 times that of what XETRA did. The gap between LSE and BITA is the narrowest throughout the year and indicative of a rapid transformation in investor preferences in Italy – both institutional and retail – who have become increasingly sophisticated in their utilization of the catalogue for both protection and opportunity.

Applying a 30/70 weightage scheme between traded volumes in Week 5 versus the rest of May to calculate a combined Z-score reveal some themes continuing to resonate through May.

Amidst the continuation of long-running trends within the LSE were added some glimpses of opportunity:

Source: Leverage Shares analysis

UBR3 spiked in the final week of May after the company announced plans to acquire European startup Delivery Hero, resulting in the stock showing choppiness. In a similar vein, volumes in AAPS spiked after Barclays issued a “Sell” rating on the stock.

Over at BITA, the concern over AI-relevant tickers’ overvaluation was writ large:

Source: Leverage Shares analysis

Investors via BITA joining the LSE-centric investors in the Uber news via 3UBR. Investors also cashed in on the downturn seen in Tesla as the robotaxi fleet trails behind Google-backed Waymo and concerns remain resilient over the company’s competitiveness relative to other carmakers’ products.

Meanwhile, XETRA remained a picture of consistency:

Source: Leverage Shares analysis

In a largely institutional-grade picture, FB3 stood out: volumes spiked from a relatively low base through the rest of the months after some analysts – primarily Bank of America – reiterated a “Buy” rating on Meta citing enterprise AI as a potential key outlet for excess capacity in its datacenters.

Potential Trends This Week

Trends seem to indicate that London might continue to see increased volumes in bets against AI-relevant names if valuations were to continue to inflate. In the leadup to Apple’s WWDC 2026, AAPS – a leveraged short on Apple stock – is potentially setting up as a hedge against valuation spikes.

In Frankfurt, SKOR has emerged as the highest-conviction carry into the next week while 3TSA is showing early signs of acceleration – a canny geopolitically driven outlook that sums up both the impact on their economies from energy supply shocks and the massive downside risk from AI overvaluation. TLT5 is expected to continue its steady accumulation regime.

Milan will likely continue to maintain a steady grip on 3RAC as investors expect a bounce in Ferrari’s stock. With further energy supply shocks in the offing due to the breakdown in talks between the US and Iran, energy products could potentially see a massive comeback into the league tables in the first week of June.

All in all, the first week of June isn’t expected to see a substantial improvement in outlook. While many institutions have been downplaying risks and continue to see some qualified support in certain AI-adjacent names, the rising volumes in protection being purchased indicate that the market continues to take in said information with a growing pinch of salt.

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