Cboe Blogs

To be successful in any field we all need to keep learning.  My job involves staying on top of all things index and volatility related which means I am always gaining new insights about the markets.  Looking back at 2016, VIX settled into lower levels after starting the year hitting the mid-20’s as the stock market sold off.  Despite the relatively tame behavior from VIX, there were some lessons to be learned last year. Number 1 – Non-Fundamental Volatility Spikes Before[...]

CBOE index products continue to attract growing interest from investors who wish to manage the income and volatility in their portfolios. A recent press release by CBOE Holdings noted that -- “… Several trading records were set [in 2016]. Total volume and average daily volume (ADV) in index options trading at CBOE reached new all-time highs for the fourth consecutive year in 2016 with 430.7 million and 1.7 million contracts, respectively, each up 6 percent from 2015. Total volume and[...]

Investors now have access to price histories for several CBOE benchmark indexes that date back 30.5 years. The first two charts below show that since mid-1986 both the CBOE S&P 500 30-Delta BuyWrite Index (BXMDSM) and CBOE S&P 500 PutWrite Index (PUTSM) had higher returns than the S&P 500® Index, 30-Year Treasury Bond Index (Citi), MSCI EAFE® Index, and S&P GSCI Index. HIGHER RETURNS AND LOWER VOLATILITY The Annualized Returns and Standard Deviations bar graphs below show[...]

CBOE offers more than 25 volatility indexes<http://www.cboe.com/micro/volatility/introduction.aspx> that can serve as valuable tools for investors who wish to gauge intra-day and long-term sentiment changes related to a variety of asset classes. In addition, investors take long and short positions in futures and options on key volatility indexes. The tables and seven graphs below provide an overview of the 2016 performance of 18 of CBOE’s volatility indexes and the CBOE SKEW Index. Key[...]

I have been banned from CBOE until next year due to an abundance of days off.  However, I can still play with numbers and I decided to take a look at what VIX does on average between the last trading day before Christmas and the first trading day of the following year.  This first chart takes the average action from 1990 to 2015.  I found it pretty interesting that on average VIX actually rises (18.46 to 19.87), but upon further reflection the dampening impact of holidays getting out[...]

VIX was up slightly last week despite the markets having a relatively muted response to the first rate hike from the FOMC in just under a year.  The December VIX futures which expire this coming Wednesday actually dropped a bit as they had been slightly elevated relative to spot VIX.  One would never think the markets digested a rate hike last week by looking at the volatility market price action below. Wednesday last week there was a trader who decided volatility is going[...]

VIX is experiencing some seasonal pressure despite the looming FOMC meeting (and expected rate hike) this Wednesday.  VIX finished the week with an 11 handle at 11.75.  Without the final known unknown market event of 2016 coming up next week one can only wonder where VIX would be.  The curve is steep, but that rise doesn’t really kick in until next year when the uncertainty of political change in Washington DC is probably hovering over the equity markets. Things[...]

CBOE’s Extended Trading Hours (ETH) options session reached a significant milestone in the wake of the surprising U.S. election results, surpassing 100,000 contracts for the first time on November 9. CBOE introduced the ETH options session in 2015 on our SPX and VIX products. The primary motivation for offering these products during off-market hours was to provide market participants with the opportunity to react to global events at the time of those events taking place, rather than having[...]

VIX managed to threaten to break below 12 this past Friday as all seems right in the world.  Who would have thought all being right in the world would involve Donald Trump as our current president elect?  Before the hate mail comes, I’m neutral on this topic, the point I’m trying to make is who would have thought VIX would be so low just a couple of weeks after his upset victory?  Last week we experienced the slightest VIX curve move that I can recall.  However, when[...]

VIX returned to being a ‘tween’ this week finishing with a twelve handle.  The rest of the curve shifted lower as all fear with respect to a Trump administration seems to have dissipated.  At least for the moment.  There are some risk events between now and the end of 2016 which I’ll address after the table below. CBOE’s partner LiveVol has a great option analyzing tool and one of the features is that you can easily see At-the-Money implied volatility for different[...]

The world continues to adjust to the idea of a Trump presidency and there seems to be a lot of fear abounding.  For instance, I recently heard an economist state that he didn’t think even Donald Trump knows what action he’ll take as President.  We will all know the answers to what he’s going to do soon enough.  A question I recently got was, “If Trump is so scary why is VIX low?”  That’s a question I can answer. There are two types of government[...]

Regardless of the outcome, we all expected VXST to get routed last week and that’s exactly what happened.  I’ve worn this out, but the election was like an earnings announcement with respect to the broad-based equity markets.  We see volatility crushes occur on short dated options when a company reports and we saw that for SPX options this past week. The highlight of the table below is TYVIX.  Uncertainty came out of stocks, but made its way into the fixed[...]

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it did it make a sound?  More appropriately for this space, if market fear increases during non-US market hours was there any increase in fear?  Before this election this could be a philosophical debate among those of use that follow market volatility.  Now we know that the answer is yes.  I’ve already touched on the overnight market action in November VIX futures and the S&P 500 futures contracts so I won’t[...]

Emerging market equities lead the charge in 2016 until Tuesday’s U.S. Presidential election.  Donald Trump’s victory altered that course as the markets react to potential changes in global trade.  Within the past two days, S&P 500 moves towards it’s 52-week high (2,193.81) and the FTSE Emerging Index declined by 5% from its record high from Sept. 8th (467.34) .  Although it may be too early to forecast trends in the Emerging Markets vs U.S. Large Caps, investors[...]

Four charts with big price moves over the past two days are presented in this blog. On the Tuesday election night in the United States, the reported prices for the November futures on the CBOE Volatility Index® (VIX®) rose from a low of 15.10 at 8:07 p.m. E.T., to a high of 23.46 at 10:27 p.m. E.T., an amazing rise of 55% over a 140-minute period (source: Bloomberg). Reported volume for VIX futures during non-U.S. trading hours topped 230,000 contracts both on June 24 (Brexit) and again[...]