Volatility Speaks: But what is the Message? In an efficient market, expected returns are a function of market risk as measured by the standard deviation of returns. Implied volatility on market indexes, such as the …
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The FOMC meets on Dec 13th and 14th with an announcement of their first rate hike in a year expected on the afternoon of the 14th. Odds of a .25 rate hike at the meeting …
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Back on September 8th we detailed a long vol trade in VIX options. This is a strategy we like and it’s probably the best pure vol play in the VIX as it doesn’t suffer from …
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A couple of new volatility products were just released. These are similar to what has come before with the VXX and XIV but instead focus on the weekly VIX futures. Here’s REX Shares founder Greg …
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Volatility ETFs like VXX and XIV are quite popular. But I often wonder whether the people trading them truly understand what they are buying and selling. I’m going to try to explain exactly what’s going …
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A couple of weeks back I wrote about the VIX and “long” VIX etn products, particularly the VXX (reposted below). Since we’ve seen some volatility between then and now I wanted to check back in …
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Here is a quick recap of all of the trades that we initiated, closed, managed, expired and considered (Name That Trades) in the week that was March 23rd to March 27th:
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In a post last week I went over some potential portfolio hedges using VIX and SPY options. We have a preferred VIX (long vol) strategy that we put from time to time and we’ll probably …
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Today might be the first time since April 16th that the S&P 500 index moves more than 1% (it rose 1.05% on that day). That is one of the longest streaks of the past few …
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VIX spot is approaching the 10 level, which it has only touched on a few occasions over the past 10 years (and really, since the inception of the index): The main difference between the 2004 …
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