What is the JPM collar?
The JPM collar is a massive quarterly options position run by the JPMorgan Hedged Equity Fund (JHEQX). The fund holds an S&P 500 stock portfolio and hedges it each quarter with an options collar: it buys a put spread below the market for downside protection and sells calls above the market to finance those puts. Because the fund is so large, its collar is one of the biggest single options positions in the S&P 500 complex — big enough that the hedging around its strikes can influence index behavior, particularly near quarter-end.
How is the JPM collar structured?
Each quarter the fund typically puts on three legs against its stock holdings: a long put roughly 5% below the market, a short put roughly 20% below the market (together forming the protective put spread), and short calls a few percent above the market that pay for the protection. The exact strikes change every quarter based on where the S&P 500 is trading at the roll.
When does the JPM collar roll?
The collar rolls on the last trading day of each calendar quarter — the end of March, June, September, and December. On roll day the expiring position is closed and a new collar is opened for the next quarter, which forces large options and hedging flows through the market in a short window. Traders watch the roll because the new strikes become reference levels for the following quarter.
Why does the JPM collar move the market?
The market makers on the other side of the collar have to hedge it. As expiration approaches, the gamma concentrated at the collar’s strikes grows, and dealer hedging around those strikes can act as a magnet or a brake on the index — a mechanical flow that has nothing to do with fundamentals. This is a specific, observable case of the broader relationship between gamma exposure and index behavior: when a single position is this large, its hedging footprint is visible in price action.
How do traders use the JPM collar levels?
The collar’s strikes function as well-known reference levels — areas where dealer hedging activity concentrates. SpotGamma tracks the collar’s current strikes and, more importantly, models how the position interacts with the rest of the market’s dealer positioning. A collar strike matters most when it lines up with other large gamma concentrations; SpotGamma’s positioning data shows that full picture rather than the single position in isolation, and its HIRO indicator shows the hedging flow around those levels in real time.
Is the JPM collar the only trade like this?
No — it is the largest and most-watched example of the hedged-equity complex: a family of funds running similar collar strategies on the S&P 500. Their combined positioning adds to the structural gamma landscape that positioning platforms track. The JPM collar gets the attention because of its size and its predictable quarterly roll schedule.
Last updated: August 2026 — Published by SpotGamma. For how positioning data like this compares across platforms, see our gamma exposure tool comparison.