More than 140 financial professionals, including top traders, strategists and researchers attended the fourth Annual Cboe Risk Management Conference (RMC) Asia on December 3 and 4 in Hong Kong.  Topics related to the management of risk and return in investment portfolios were discussed by 12 speakers at RMC Asia, including Tim Edwards, Tim Weithers and Cboe Chairman and CEO Ed Tilly. Day One: Options/Volatility Fundamentals: Synthetic Option Strategies, Volatility Trading, and Futures and[...]

More than 150 financial professionals, including top traders, strategists and researchers attended the inaugural Cboe Risk Management Conference (RMC) in Tel Aviv, Israel on November 6. A variety of topics related to the management of risk and return in investment portfolios were discussed by 17 speakers at RMC Israel, including the three speakers pictured below: Sheldon Natenberg (left), Andy Lowenthal (center), and David Blitzer (right). A sampling of comments and topics covered by the 17 speakers[...]

Gary Delany, Director of European Marketing and Education for The Options Industry Council (OIC), Friday presented the findings of a study from late 2017/early 2018 at the Cboe Risk Management Conference (RMC) Europe that looked at European use of U.S. options products, both multi-listed options, as well as proprietary options.  Key findings from the study include: European order flow accounts for an estimated 9% of trading, similar to 2013. Investments in U.S. equities are at record[...]

Winding up the 7th Annual Cboe European Risk Management Conference (RMC) on Friday, September 14, was a discussion of “Variance Utility Cases and Uses,” moderated by Michael Mollet, Head of Product Development at Cboe Global Markets. Joining Mollet was Adel Benharrats, Portfolio Manager at Argentiere Capital, Markos Petrocheilos, Senior Equity Derivatives Trader, BNP Paribas, and Chris Rodarte, Lead Portfolio Manager at Pine River Capital Management. The[...]

Abhinandan Deb, Managing Director and Head of Global Cross Asset Quant Investment Strategy at BofA Merrill Lynch, delivered a presentation on “Volatility Regime Change – Signs, Symptoms and Solutions” on September 13 at the 7th Annual Cboe European Risk Management Conference (RMC). Topics covered by Mr. Deb included:  What to watch as we leave ultra-low volatility behind Diversification, relative value and defensive strategies Key points covered included: The[...]

Coordinated presentations were delivered by Tim Edwards, Ph.D., Managing Director of Index Strategy, S&P Dow Jones Indices, and Saurabh Katiyar, Vice President, MSCI, on the following topics at the 7th Annual Cboe European Risk Management Conference (RMC) on September 13: An outline of changes in the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) classifications of sector and industry groups How sectoral groupings help connect broader trends to their market effects Comparing the[...]

Cboe Global Markets President and COO Chris Concannon opened the second day of the Cboe Risk Management Conference Europe reflecting on the market events of the last year, including volatility’s return to the market earlier in 2018, and looked at the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Following the conference theme “Reading the Signals in the New Volatility Regime,” Concannon talked about market signals as we look at the current state of the U.S. market and economy. Concannon[...]

Credit and Credit Volatility were discussed in presentations on September 13 at the 7th Annual Cboe European Risk Management Conference (RMC) by Yoshiki Obayashi, Head of Research, Applied Academics, LLC, and Brett Pybus, CFA, Managing Director, BlackRock. Topics discussed by the expert presenters included; Markets and use cases for corporate bond index futures and ETFs What drives credit volatility and what do credit volatility indexes tell you about the state of credit markets and spreads? [...]

Louis-Vincent Gave of Gavekal delivered a speech on “Are We Still in a Bull Market” on September 13 at the 7th Annual Cboe European Risk Management Conference (RMC). Mr. Gave’s presentation included 57 slides; below are highlights, with excerpts from some of the slides: GRAPHIC #1 – CHINA’S INDUSTRIAL POLICY GRAPHIC #2 – POSSIBLE SLOWDOWN IN U.S. GRAPHIC #3 – TECH IN U.S. AND CHINA   GRAPHIC #4 – FEWER SEC-LISTED COMPANIES IN THE U.S. GRAPHIC[...]

On September 12 at the 7th Annual Cboe European Risk Management Conference (RMC), presentations on  The Interest Rate Volatility Environment - Can Rates Volatility be the Next "Safe-Haven"?  were delivered by two experts - Yoshiki Obayashi, Head of Research, Applied Academics, LLC and by Kokou Agbo-Bloua, Managing Director, Global Head of Flow Strategy & Solutions, Société Générale. Topics covered in the presentations included: What drives rates volatilities[...]

On September 12 at the 7th Annual Cboe European Risk Management Conference (RMC), Bill Speth, Global Head of Research on the Cboe Multi-Asset Solutions Team, delivered a presentation on Developments in Volatility-Related Indicators & Benchmarks. Bill’s presentation covered the following topics -- A look into the many volatility indicators that exist; how they were created and for what purposes VIX® Index, RVX Index (Russell 2000 vol), VVIX Index (VIX of VIX), SKEW Index, and[...]

Cboe Global Markets, Inc. launched trading in Cboe® iBoxx® iShares® $ High Yield Corporate Bond Index (IBHY) futures on the Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE) Monday, September 10, 2018. The new futures are designed to allow users to hedge and mitigate high yield corporate bond credit risk, and more generally allow them to efficiently allocate to the corporate bond market and implement fixed-income trading strategies. The price of Cboe's IBHY futures is based on IHS Markit's iBoxx® iShares®[...]

Eric Rains from BlueMountain Capital and Stewart Warther from BNP Paribas split duties for a session titled US Dispersion:  Stocks, Sectors, and Index and a Changing Rate Environment.  As many of the sessions this week referred to the imminent rate hike next week the attendance for this session was quite high.   Both participants split duties on a single presentation.  They gave an overview of recent price action noting that rate sensitivity has become a more important factor[...]

Ilya Feygin from WallachBeth Capital and Stacey Gilbert from Susquehanna split duties for a well-attended session at today’s CBOE Risk Management Conference titled Determining Edge in Options Trading – an Application of the Kelly Criterion.  The topic was fresh in everyone’s minds as Ed Thorp, a pioneer of using the Kelly Criterion, was our keynote speaker the day before.  Feygin began the session explaining at a very high level the Kelly Criterion.  In very simple[...]

Pravit Chintawongvanich from Macro Risk Advisors teamed up with RMC veteran Scott Maidel for a discussion titled SPX Weeklys:  Market Analysis and Long and Short Applications today at CBOE’s Risk Management Conference in Dana Point, CA.  Pravit’s presentation started out discussing event pricing of Weekly options.  He actually used Euro Stoxx 50 option premium differences before and after the pending French election.  This is a very timely example of how implied volatility[...]