[VE] This One Thing is…WIDE
This morning we had VIX expiration. And a special spread we look at is…WIDDEEE. More interestingly, especially for the ETP’s like VXX and UVXY is the spread between the cash index and the September future. It is wide, I mean historically wide. Take a look… …it is Giant: While there is some understandable election premium […]
A Simple VIX Trading Trick
Man time has flown by and we are heading into the final couple of days of the VIX August expiration cycle. That good ‘ol day where wall street frantically awaits whether their option expired in-the-money or out-of-the-money. Leading into expirations, I am always looking for plays in VIX. This is because the last couple of […]
Election Trading Hack Inside
As vol traders we tend to focus on what is in front of our face. In the news is the US Elections. Normally I ignore elections, they tend not to matter long term. However, in this one there is a lot of opportunity built in. The October VIX future is still 30!!! The is over […]
I Warned You About This
Tuesday was a giant ‘rotation’ day.All day we saw money coming out of the mega caps like AAPL, MSFT, AMZN, and GOOGL and into the industrials.The XLI was up pretty substantially at a time the NDX was down 1%.Yet interestingly, the VIX did not react to the move in the industrials which ended the day […]
AAPL is Whispering To Me
One of the indicators I tend to watch in indexes is how the volatility is moving with the index… When we see the SPX and the VIX going up at the same time, that is not always bearish, but it is rarely bullish for the S&P 500. I bring this up, because of what is […]
This Happened With A Market Top!
The VVIX which is the VIX for VIX options is approaching its lows since the shut down. Today, on the lows the VVIX almost touched below 110. This is significant because the last time it got this cheap that was a market top. However, this one does feel a touch different… Why? Because the index […]
Earnings, Earnings, Earnings!!
Heading into Thursday, we have a huge day of earnings. On Thursday afternoon 4 of the ‘Big 5’ report their earnings… AAPL, AMZN, FB, GOOG/GOOGL all report on Thursday night. This represents about 35% of the NASDAQ 100 reporting in one afternoon. One would think that this would cause the IV of the QQQ to […]
Well This is WEIRD (Trade Inside)…
Something has to give! Either the VIX is too cheap… Or the August VIX future is too expensive…. With a month to go, a 3 point spread between the future and the cash is incredibly wide. At this point, the spread should be below 2, especially with the VIX around 25 and realized volatility closer […]
A Spread No One Is Watching (Hint: You NEED To)
If you are wondering if the VIX at 24 means there is no more risk in the market you are wrong… There is HUGE risk in the market, you just need to look somewhere else to see it. The VXN, the VIX of the NASDAQ 100 (the QQQ) is still way above 30. Interestingly, the […]
Traffic Light Change…Here’s Why
The VIX ended the day flat… The VIX futures were down… VXX was down…. All of the major indexes were down… What does this mean? It means that we are starting to see a change in money flow. We have seen VIX lows happen NOT when AAPL is off to the races (or the other […]