As reported earlier this week in the Financial Times, the standard deviation for economic forecasts for the U.S., EK, EU and Japan all are near their lows, with survey firm Consensus Economics reporting very little dispersion of GDP year-ahead forecasts. More generally, there is a consensus that worldwide economic growth looks bleak, and that a Federal Fund target rate hike is improbable in the near future. Accordingly, investors are taking a pause. In particular, the volumes of trading in CBOE[...]