As news of a potential scandal surrounding Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang began to trickle out on Sunday, investors faced a simple question: what could it mean for the stock?
One answer could be found in an obscure but growing corner of the markets: perpetual futures.
On Sunday at 3 p.m. ET, well before pre-market equity trading had started, a number of traders began placing bearish bets on Nvidia perpetual futures. Specifically, perpetuals on Nvidia traded first, with Hyperliquid's xyz contract slipping to as low as $180.15 on $200 million of volume by 3:30 p.m. E.T. Both equity shares and perps on Nvidia fell below $178 overnight. It traded 7% lower on Monday.
Sunday's trading shines a light on a product that is increasingly filling a market void when traditional markets are off-line.
In their simplest form, perpetual futures are highly leveraged bets that never expire. They can track almost any asset class and trade around the clock, seven days a week.