Earnings Season Frenzy: Understanding the Explosive Growth in Demand for Tokenized US Stocks

Introduction: Three Forces Driving the Global Trading Phenomenon

Bitget internal data shows a significant surge in tokenized US stock trading activity during the recent earnings season (mid-October to late November). Market participation was exceptionally high during this period, with demand surging by a record 450%. This growth momentum spanned both the spot and futures markets, with month-over-month trading volumes increasing by 452% and 4,468%, respectively.

This "earnings season frenzy" is not a single event, but rather driven by three powerful and interconnected forces that define a new era for global stock trading. These three forces are the characteristics of the trading instruments, the global accessibility offered by the 24-hour market, and the unique behavioral patterns exhibited by participants. This report will analyze these three forces one by one, providing a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of this increasingly mature global market phenomenon.

Part One: Assets – The Story of the Contract and Spot Markets

Analyzing popular assets is crucial for understanding the motivations of market participants. Earnings season data reveals a clear strategic divergence between the contract and spot markets, profoundly reflecting the differentiated trading objectives of traders and investors.

"The futures market exhibits an aggressive trading style, characterized by highly leveraged earnings speculation and a concentration on tech giants, while the spot market adopts a more balanced strategy, employing diversified allocations to achieve a balance between offense and defense." Futures Market: High-Leverage Bets on Tech Giants The stock futures market has become a stage for aggressive speculative trading, with trading activity highly concentrated on a few mega-tech companies. Traders use these tools to make directional bets on earnings-driven volatility. In fact, seven of the top ten most traded stock futures contracts are with mega-tech companies, indicating strong market position building. The top five US stock contracts by trading volume are as follows: • Tesla (TSLA): $2.54 billion • Meta (META): $2.05 billion • MicroStrategy (MSTR): $1.43 billion • Apple (AAPL): $1.03 billion • Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ): $460 million The robust holdings in key tech stocks can be glimpsed in their explosive growth in month-over-month trading volume. Meta contract volume surged 40,774%, Microsoft increased by 24,339%, and MicroStrategy by 11,684%. This highly concentrated trading points to a clear strategic intent: traders are actively positioning themselves to profit from earnings season volatility, AI strategic moves, and the volatility inherent in highly liquid tech stocks. More notably, the presence of the Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ) and MicroStrategy (MSTR) among the top five traded instruments reveals a deeper strategic dimension. QQQ's active trading highlights its value as an efficient hedging tool—helping investors heavily invested in tech stocks manage systemic risk, or gain overall sector exposure while mitigating individual stock risk. Meanwhile, MicroStrategy's consistently high trading volume reflects the market's enthusiasm for cryptocurrency concept stocks, making it an important indirect exposure for positioning in this sector. In stark contrast to the frenzied speculation in the futures market, spot investors have adopted a more balanced and diversified allocation strategy. While focusing on market leaders, they diversify risk through index ETFs and allocate defensive assets to cope with the uncertainty of earnings season. This balanced approach demonstrates that investors prioritize risk management while pursuing growth. The strategy for the spot market is built on three pillars: • Technology Leaders: Nvidia (NVDA) led the spot market with approximately $30 million in trading volume and a 1888% month-over-month increase, highlighting the market's continued focus on core technology assets with long-term growth potential. Star technology companies such as Tesla, Amazon, and Apple also ranked among the top in trading volume. • Index-based diversification: Trading volume of tokenized ETFs has increased significantly, with the Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ) up 3492% month-over-month and the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) up 3247%, indicating that investors are using index tools to diversify risk and allocate macroeconomic assets. • Surge in demand for safe-haven assets: Long-term Treasury bond ETFs (TLT) saw a staggering 69,573% increase in monthly trading volume, reflecting sophisticated defensive allocation strategies. This approach offers dual protection: it can serve as a hedge against disappointing earnings reports (safe-haven flows typically drive up Treasury prices) and also allows investors to bet on the possibility of a Federal Reserve rate cut when the economy weakens (lower yields will boost long-term bond prices). • This balanced strategy of "offense and defense" in the spot market demonstrates a more cautious long-term allocation strategy. Part Two: Accessibility: How 5x24 Trading Unlocks Global User Participation Potential

The 5x24 trading model has evolved from an innovative feature into the infrastructure for global market participation. This is not merely an extension of trading hours, but a structural transformation that eliminates time zone barriers, creating unprecedented opportunities for diverse global investors. This model enables market participants to flexibly grasp pre-market information, adjust post-market strategies, or implement precise allocations during local trading hours.

Peak Trading Hours Analysis and Winning Strategies for Investors

Analysis of 5x24-hour trading volume reveals how global investors, especially Asian investors, are transforming this access mechanism for continuous trading into a strategic advantage. We can identify three key trading windows, each with a unique function:

• Core US Stock Trading Hours (UTC 16:00-20:00): This period overlaps with traditional US stock trading hours and is the most concentrated stage of trading, especially in the closing session.

However, significant barriers to participation exist for Asian investors during this period, highlighting the unique value of earlier trading windows. • Asian Afternoon/US Pre-Market Session (UTC 08:00-10:00): This is the most active window outside the regular trading session. It is of critical value to Asian investors because it coincides with the local afternoon session, allowing them to respond promptly to overnight news and earnings reports, gaining a crucial pre-market positioning advantage without having to trade overnight. • US After-Hours Session (UTC 20:00-23:00): While trading volume is at its daily low during this period, it provides important emergency adjustment capabilities. Investors can react immediately to sudden corporate announcements after the market closes, adjust positions in a timely manner, and avoid uncontrollable overnight risks. This democratization of market participation ensures that market participation is no longer geographically restricted, leading to our in-depth analysis of global players reshaping the market landscape. Part Three: Participants – A Diverse Global User Base and Distinct Trading Behaviors Analysis of user geographic distribution and trading frequency reveals a market that is both globally diverse and stratified by behavior. This surge in trading activity is driven by sophisticated investors from East Asia, exhibiting two distinct trading profiles: high-frequency "big players" and relatively passive "retail" investors. Regional Distribution: East Asia Leads, Exploring Potential Markets The user composition clearly demonstrates the global nature of demand for tokenized US stocks, with each regional market exhibiting distinct regional characteristics and growth potential: • East Asia: 39.66% • Latin America: 8.29% • South Asia: 7.76% • Southeast Asia: 5.91% • Europe: A Key Market with Huge Growth Potential A deeper analysis of the characteristics of each regional market reveals: • East Asia: As the largest and most mature user group, despite significant time zone and language barriers, investors show strong interest in US tech giants and global asset allocation. • Europe: With smaller time zone differences and a mature global asset allocation culture, it naturally possesses enormous expansion potential and is a highly valuable growth area. • Emerging Markets (Latin America and Asia): On a rapid development trajectory, driven by both widespread internet access and fintech applications, continuously stimulating user demand for participation in the world's largest stock markets.

Transaction Behavior Analysis: Behavioral Differences Between Large Investors and Retail Investors

Users are segmented based on transaction value, with the top 30% by transaction volume defined as "large investors" and the remaining 70% as "retail investors." Analysis of these users reveals fundamental behavioral differences between the most active and least active participants in the market.