09.03.2026 Consolidation Notice

In the week ending the 13th of March 2026, volume trends in Leverage Shares’ products across 3 exchanges across Europe – the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the Borsa Italiana (BITA) and Germany’s XETRA – showed a slight volume contraction with products running on event-driven spikes making some gains. The LSE in the United Kingdom indicates a regime of structural expansion with a quick run into very idiosyncratic alpha. While the macro liquidity black hole created by the -3x Short South Korea (KORS) trade is rapidly unwinding week-over-week, speculative capital is not leaving the exchange; it is fiercely rotating into single-stock leveraged momentum. Products like 3x Disney, -3x Short Intel, and 3x UBER experienced staggering week-on-week volume accelerations of over 600% from low average volumes in earlier periods of the year, signalling a shift from macro hedging to targeted, event-driven stock picking and opportunity capture.

Italy, on the other hand, executed a highly sophisticated flow. On one end, structural commitment to energy commodities remains historically elevated. On the other, investors are maintaining broad market tech hedges such as the -5x Nasdaq 100 () while aggressively hunting for yield in highly volatile single-stock names, evidenced by explosive week-over-week volume in -3x Short Intel (+2,387%) and 3x Long Hims & Hers (+1,054%). Borsa’s top 3 account for nearly 86% of volume in the past week: leveraged plays in MicroStrategy and Coinbase along with the -5x Nasdaq 100.

In Germany, risk appetite soured with heavy defensive rotation. Like in the United Kingdom, capital fled the transient South Korea macro panic. Unlike in the United Kingdom, flows rotated heavily into broad-based market hedges like the -5x Short S&P 500 and -5x Short Nasdaq 100. However, cross-sectional momentum analysis reveals narrow pockets of aggressive risk-taking, specifically in 5x Long S&P 500 and 3x Amazon.

Momentum and Regimes

In the United Kingdom, the massive surge in the -3x Short South Korea (KORS) seen in the first week of March saw a near-halving. The textbook liquidity vacuum that defined the exchange’s monthly flow is now unwinding rapidly via steep week-over-week mean reversion. While overall volumes in most products maintained a steady state relative to the more recent past and KORS dominates the overall league table, momentum over the past week was in the longs.

Websim is the retail division of Intermonte, the primary intermediary of the Italian stock exchange for institutional investors. Leverage Shares often features in its speculative analysis based on macros/fundamentals. However, the information is published in Italian. To provide better information for our non-Italian investors, we bring to you a quick translation of the analysis they present to Italian retail investors. To ensure rapid delivery, text in the charts will not be translated. The views expressed here are of Websim. Leverage Shares in no way endorses these views. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment, please seek financial advice. View the original at

Source: Leverage Shares analysis

One leading trigger for the higher interest in these specific long products in the midst of a broad market decline in the U.S. could be attributed to Monday and Friday past week when the Nasdaq-100 closed higher relative to the previous trading session. This created the basis for some opportunistic positioning. However, the high momentum of change belies the overall volume share of these products. The overall theme across the product catalogue continued to flash uncertainty and hedging. Joining the fray were the -3x Short Japan (JPNS) and -3x Short Artificial Intelligence (GPTS), wherein volumes over February and March Month Till Date (MTD) saw relatively modest but meaningful surges in the past week.

Meanwhile in Italy, volume spikes in the past week show a similar mix of opportunism tempered with classic positioning that is dominated by crypto-proxies such as Coinbase and MicroStrategy amidst interest in the -5X Short Nasdaq 100 (SQQQ) continuing to grow from strength to strength.

Source: Leverage Shares analysis

Longs on oil and gas remain in force while the short in the Nasdaq 100 is also joined by a nearly threefold increase in the -5x Short S&P 500 (SSPY) in March. The short in Intel – a company that is increasingly aligned with and invested into by the U.S. government – is seemingly a common theme among European investors, with Italy in particular going from a moderate monthly defensive posture through most of 2026 so far to a week-over-week bearish spike over the stock’s weakness. This pattern was upended in Hims & Hers, wherein monthly momentum were trending towards mean reversion (-21%) which was violently upended by a targeted week-over-week surge in retail participation. The waning favour of GPTS in Italy finds a mirror in LSE wherein moderate monthly bearishness heavily concentrated and accelerated into a targeted weekly drawdown. Meanwhile, 5MAG showed a highly symmetrical risk-on flow, maintaining almost identical growth metrics across both the monthly and weekly horizons – indicating that the flavour for the past week was “opportunity”.

Germany’s XETRA, meanwhile, sees some trace of liquidity (at least in terms of volumes) continuing to be abandoned in favour of a hold-and-watch pattern. Structurally, defensive rotation is intact. In terms of week-on-week momentum, however, the Germans weren’t altogether disinterested in opportunity in small measures.

Source: Leverage Shares analysis

In the case of 5SPE, full-month volumes were fairly flat until an acute week-over-week in the most recent full week wherein an event-driven surge saw fast money aggressively buy the dip during the week. The same phenomenon was observed for Amazon and Facebook products while SGDE seems to indicate hedges were being applied on defensive positions or strong exposure to “storehouse of value” instruments. However, the volumes traded didn’t change the overall tenor of XETRA volumes.

Acceleration Trends

In terms of volumes across the week, LSE traded five times the volume that Italy’s BITA did which, in turn were 2.5 times that of what XETRA did. Applying a 60/40 weightage scheme between traded volumes versus historical averages seen over the year and week-on-week volumes to calculate a combined Z-score reveal several products that don’t quite grab headlines as often.

In the LSE, a recession-favourite classic and a relatively sophisticated product stand out:

Source: Leverage Shares analysis

The common factor between Goldman Sachs and the Short Volatility Long Tech (SVLT) could be the VIX, which retreated from 35 in the first week of March to 27 in the most recent full week. Normalising volatility reduces expected credit losses and widens trading spreads in Goldman’s favour while lending support to a stabilising rate environment which benefits its fixed income franchise.

Meanwhile, SVLT consists of a long position in QQQ – which tracks the Nasdaq-100 – and a short position on the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETNs (VXX) of up to 15% of total holdings (albeit with periodic discretionary rebalancing enabled). During the week, the VIX’s drop essentially signalled that the VXX leg of the product might be returning to contango while QQQ simultaneously found a sliver of technical support. The sophisticated nature of this product had traditionally made it an investment connoisseur’s choice: in 2026, monthly volumes have generally been quite low. In the most recent week, however, it witnessed a nearly 10X expansion in interest. The rise off of low average volumes is a feature seen in the Goldman Sachs product as well. Whether it sustains remains to be seen.

Hedging considerations and opportunism in low volumes also dominated XETRA’s Z-score charts.

Source: Leverage Shares analysis

While SGDE’s volumes over past week suggest a consistent hedging position in place and SPL has the hallmarks of opportunism with some consistent volume in March so far, all other products rose from very low volumes in the YTD to comparatively strong performance in the past week. However, the dominant volume driver remained the -5x Nasdaq 100.

Over at BITA, Italian investors steadily increased a bearish outlook on Intel to make it into the top 5 in terms of combined Z-score.

Source: Leverage Shares analysis

SOXS was the clear outperformer by adding 7X in volume over a single week while GPTS showed a 2X increase. All through February, Italian investors were seemingly poised on Novo Nordisk’s patent infringement lawsuit against Hims & Hers ending, leading to volumes seemingly lying in anticipation. With the announcement that Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy – a popular GLP-1 weight management drug – would be distributed through the Hims platform at $599 per month via a landmark partnership, strong volumes returned in force this past week to equal around a third of February’s average daily volume – thus knocking it out of the Top 5 chart. In contrast, MAG7 has steadily gone from strength to strength across past full months and the past two weeks of March. Interest in MAG7 – despite the underlying remaining under pressure through most of 2026 – suggests that investors have been buying the dip systematically in order to capitalize on the leverage factor during a comeback.

Potential Trends This Week

The nascent positioning in WTIS in London and 2SWT in Frankfurt isn’t necessarily misplaced opportunism: due to easing pressure on Chinese and Indian oil imports, WTI seems to be exploring an easing of price. With further announcements on the conflict in the Middle East, WTIS might become the standout story for the current week. While defensive shorts on U.S. broad indices are strong stories in both venues so far, the defining stories for the current week might be longs on the indices if early trends in the major indices continue.

Meanwhile in Milan, early trends of Bitcoin rising in the current week bodes well for the dominant products in volume terms: leveraged products on crypto-proxies MicroStrategy and Coinbase. Given that the 20th of March is triple witching day — wherein stock index futures, stock index options, and individual stock options simultaneously expire — the growing pillar of tech exposure in both longs and shorts might see new volume records being set on the very last day of the week.

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