Options traders are making an enormous wager on Brazil. Call option open interest on the iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ) has ballooned to roughly 5.2 million contracts, representing about $20B in notional exposure. That’s the highest level since 2007, and it nearly doubled in a matter of days.
The numbers behind the Brazil bet
As of early September 2026, call open interest on EWZ stood at approximately 5.2 million contracts. That figure jumped roughly 86% from about 2.8 million contracts on August 24. To put the speed of that move in perspective, that’s a near-doubling in less than two weeks.
The ETF itself has climbed around 15% during the same stretch, pushing its year-to-date gain to roughly 19%, outpacing the Nasdaq-100 in certain windows.
Daily options volume has spiked to more than six times the 30-day average at several points in early September, with the overwhelming majority of that activity concentrated in calls.
The most popular trades cluster around out-of-the-money strike prices at $43 and $45, with expiration dates set for November 20, 2026. Those two strikes alone account for approximately 1.37 million contracts. With EWZ trading in the $38 to $39 range, those strikes sit roughly 10% to 18% above the current price.
Why Brazil, why now
The answer lives in polling data for Brazil’s 2026 presidential election. Flávio Bolsonaro, a Liberal Party senator and son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, has been gaining ground on incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. What looked like a comfortable lead for Lula has tightened into something that markets consider genuinely uncertain.
The focus on November 2026 expiries is particularly telling. Brazil’s general election is scheduled for October 2026, with a potential runoff in late October. By choosing options that expire after both rounds, traders are giving themselves exposure through the full electoral timeline.
What the options market is signaling
Implied volatility on EWZ options has risen alongside the surge in open interest, while the call-to-put skew is extreme by historical standards.
The $20B in notional exposure also carries risks that cut both ways. Out-of-the-money options decay quickly as expiration approaches, and a 10% gap between the current price and the popular strikes means time is not on the side of late arrivals to this trade.