Were Derivatives and SoftBank Behind The Tech Rally?

On Monday, SoftBank's market value fell by about $9 billion after the Financial Times broke news that the Japanese tech investor was the so-called “Nasdaq whale” that drove the US stock market to record highs in recent months.

SoftBank had reportedly spent about $4 billion on options focused on tech stocks with an overall exposure of about $30 billion. However, some analysts say it can’t attribute the overall market impact solely to SoftBank.

For a better understanding of this and how it all works, we spoke to Ed Clissold, Chief U.S. Strategist at Ned Davis Research.

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