This article was originally published in The Option Strategist Newsletter Volume 19, No. 19 on October 14, 2010.
Each year about this time, we review and recommend a futures spread that has been quite profitable over the years: buying Feb Gasoline futures and selling Feb Heating Oil futures. We call this an intermarket spread since it involves a long position in one market and a short position in a different, but related, market.
This spread has generally been quite reliable in the past, but it can only be implemented in one form – with the actual futures contracts themselves (more about that1 later). We have traded this spread almost every year since 1994, although the entry and exit parameters have been altered a few times.
This article was originally published in The Option Strategist Newsletter Volume 21, No. 10 on June 1, 2012.
These days, there are more and more volatility indices and futures than ever. One can observe the same sorts of things about them that we do with $VIX futures – in particular, the futures premium and the term structure. We thought it would be an interesting exercise to see how these other markets’ futures constructs compare to that of $VIX. The $VIX construct, for a long time (see chart, page 12) has been that of large futures premiums and a steep upward slope to the term structure. Historically, that sort of construct has been associated with bullish markets, although it has persisted throughout the current market decline as well. How do these other markets line up in comparison to the $VIX futures construct?
This article was originally published in The Option Strategist Newsletter Volume 14, No. 5 on March 10, 2005.
One of the recurring themes in option-oriented media articles is that the $VIX Index is “too low.” Since many observers – media and traders alike – view $VIX as solely a contrarian indicator, this is a danger sign for the market. These observers figure that such a low $VIX implies that traders are, in general, too complacent, and thus the market is ripe for a beating. There are a lot of errors in these observations and opinions, and so we’d like to set the record straight. We have written articles about similar topics in the past, but with $VIX hovering near nineyear lows for such a long time (at least three months now), it is perhaps more timely now than ever.
This article was originally published in The Option Strategist Newsletter Volume 18, No. 06 on March 26, 2009.
We have written about this topic many times in the past, but the $VIX futures’ ability to predict broad market movements has been called into question recently. For example, at the recent CBOE Risk Management Conference in Laguna Niguel, California, there was some discussion that the $VIX derivative products had lost their ability to “predict” movements in $SPX. That is not entirely true. What has spurred this sort of thinking is the fact that $VIX did not spike up to a peak and snap back down again when $SPX most recently declined sharply into what is so far a “V” bottom at 670. Also, discrepancies in the term structure, which at one time resulted in immediate movements in $SPX, have taken much longer to materialize in recent months than they used to.
This article was originally published in The Option Strategist Newsletter Volume 19, No. 02 on January 28, 2010.
Over the years, we have written many times about the problems in predicting or estimating volatility. However, it is necessary to attempt the task, because it is so crucial in determining which (option) strategies can be used.
