Dear Etorians, The S&P500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100 posted their worst session in two months, down around 1.5%. Yet no central banker has given bad end-of-year news. So-called zero days to expire (0DTE) options are contracts that expire in less than 24 hours and provide individuals and institutions with a relatively cheap, but very risky, way to bet on intraday fluctuations in stock prices. There are such options on indices, ETFs or stocks. Generally, pros use them as hedges, but those who want to speculate can use them as highly leveraged products on short moves. Hence their reputation for sometimes being lottery tickets and having the potential to create sudden and artificial movements in the markets. Yesterday, financial intermediaries noted that 0DTE volumes were quite high as it approached a major area on the S&P500. Consequently, the most commented hypothesis this morning is that the session of December 20 was an isolated accident fueled by a large volume selling 0DTE options, in an illiquid market. This is an opportunity to remind all those who are intoxicated with stock market rises that markets sometimes go down. $NSDQ100 $SPX500 $S.US $SHOP $SNOW