When I explain to my option mentoring students that just because implied volatility is low, doesn't mean that a calendar is a good idea...its days like today that I am thinking about. The Term Structure of the S&P 500 is completely screwed up. Take a look at the S&P 500 term structure near the end of the day:
April is 2% lower than May; May is more than 1% less expensive than June. The trade to me seems to be buy April and sell May or June (probably May). This can be done either using SPX (those that have margin) or ES (those that do not). For those worried about IV falling further in April, I highly doubt it can drop anymore based on the structure between the weekly's and the April:
Notice that April weekly IV (red) is the same or higher than April (yellow). This hints that regular April should not be able to fall much further for the rest of the week. If trader's thought it could they would also be unloading on the weekly options. Getting back to the timespread idea, with the April this low, it will not take much of a pop in April, 2% or so ot make this trade a winner. By my best estimate a 10-12 point swing in either direction almost ensures that a short calendar wins.
For me right now, I have no interest in selling premium beyond some sort of time spread. Butterflies, condors, diagonals, long calendars all look AWFUL right now. This is one of those times where an income trade might win, but the loss that will be experienced should we get a vol pop could be catastrophic. Its hard to even use S&P 500 puts as a hedge because put skew is super high as well.
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Graphs from LiveVolPro
