The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) plans to start trading all-or-nothing options on 12 stocks and exchange-traded funds within days, Reuters reported yesterday (Tuesday). The first underlyings include Apple, Nvidia, Tesla and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust.
The contracts, called binary return options, pay a fixed amount if a share closes above or below a set price, and nothing if it does not. NYSE plans to add more underlyings over time.
US demand for yes-or-no bets has grown fast. Monthly event contract volume rose from about $1 billion in 2024 to more than $50 billion in July 2026, the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation said this month in a letter backing Cboe’s plan for contracts on company earnings figures.
London’s trading industry is coming home!
Three US Exchanges, Three Stages
NYSE joins Cboe and MEMX in bringing binary contracts to US options markets this year, and each exchange sits at a different stage.
Cboe has listed yes-or-no options on the Mini-S&P 500 since June, starting with Interactive Brokers, and Charles Schwab plans to offer them to its clients.
Its earnings contracts are next. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cleared them on October 13 with Robinhood lined up as the first retail broker, and Cboe’s clearing house won temporary SEC registration on October 23. Cboe plans to list them in the fourth quarter.
MEMX filed for similar earnings contracts in August and NYSE in September. That leaves Cboe’s index options as the only one of these products already trading, with four more in the queue.
A Product First Approved in 2007
The single-stock contracts run under rules NYSE American has carried for years. The SEC approved them in August 2007 as Fixed Return Options on stocks and ETFs, when the venue was still the American Stock Exchange.
The exchange limited them to closing trades in March 2009 and won SEC approval in 2014 to relaunch them as Binary Return Derivatives, filings show. NYSE describes each contract as paying a fixed $100.
“We’ve seen this incredible growth in the US options market over the last several years,” Kevin Tyrrell, NYSE’s chief product officer, told Reuters.
The earnings contracts NYSE is still waiting on would pay $1 or nothing. The payout depends on whether a figure reported to the SEC, such as Apple’s iPhone sales or Tesla’s Model 3/Y production, meets a strike. The filings list 23 companies, from JPMorgan Chase to SpaceX.
Europe Keeps the Payout From Retail
The same all-or-nothing payout is closed to retail clients in Europe. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) barred binary option sales to retail investors in 2018 and said in July that event contracts classed as financial instruments fall under the same bans.
Britain followed. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) made its own retail ban permanent in April 2019.
NYSE’s owner is also invested in prediction markets. Intercontinental Exchange agreed in October 2025 to invest up to $2 billion in prediction market Polymarket and completed the commitment in March.
This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.
