gamma

The Sissification of Risk

Submitted by atg on Wed, 03/27/2013 - 4:47pm

Yes I made that word up.  I make them up all the time during the Pit Report.  I was looking for a phrase to describe the activity, and it was hard to put things into words.  Essentially market participants want return without taking risk, and then complain when they lose.  The market for risk has become "sissified." The trend was started with the bailout of Mexico in the early 1990s and went to Asia, sort of hit the USA with LTCM and is now stuck in Europe where it will remain for some time.  I think Europe had their Lehman moment and things got a little ugly after that.  You might say TARP, but that was loan guarantees against bank assets.

One last move for 2012

Submitted by atg on Mon, 12/31/2012 - 4:02pm

The last post of 2012 is a little bitter sweet.  Overall a good year for equity returns but I can’t shake the feeling that we missed something and the market is holding back.  Most of the big issues of 2012 are not on the front page anymore.  Much like the end of 2011 a few loose ends are hanging around.  One thing I find telling is that the bond prices (measuring by the TLT) did not continue their move to outpace equities.  The Fed is going to keep buying but that rally looks like it is coming to an end.  The most crowded trade of 2012 is ending up around nowhere as I have TLT up around 1% YTD before dividends.  Here is my last snap of equity volatility going into 2013.

When the volatility don’t do what you think…

Submitted by atg on Wed, 12/19/2012 - 6:15pm

Not the best grammar but I wanted an attention grabber.

Did anyone catch the volatility markup at the end of the day today?  We had fairly solid preopening activity this morning, but news of the budget standoff sent the market into a small tailspin.  The volatility players are in the serious business of trying to handicap the outcome of the Fiscal Cliff talks.  Yesterday players were pricing in a much better shot of things going through earlier than not.  VIX traded as low as 15.57, as it sold off most of the day yesterday.  After an aggressive print on VIX settlement this morning, volatility traders started buying options in Jan cycle for the big indexes.

Demand for Gamma and Vega is Light

Submitted by msebastian on Fri, 12/07/2012 - 5:09pm

As we discussed on Tuesday, VIX was not just pricing in the cliff,  it was pricing in the non-farms that came out today.   While the December contract really hasn't moved since then, the Cash Index has come in considerably.  The curve closed the day basically back to normal contango, albeit a relatively flat contango. 

vix_8.PNG

www.vixcentral.com

When the rallies are the crashes

Submitted by atg on Thu, 09/06/2012 - 5:18pm

Well the good news, at least from the markets perspective, is that the ECB outlined some kind of plan for buying and supporting Euro area debt.  For the most part, it was the same assembly of loose promises and goodies, but that should be enough to get the animal spirits rolling in Europe until the end of the week.  Add to that a pretty decent ADP payroll report that seems to point to employers getting past the tumult of last year’s crisis.  The SPX cash closed over 2% for a big relief rally.  Here is where it gets weird. 

Breaking Down a CHK trade from Bloomberg's Lunch Money

Submitted by msebastian on Mon, 08/06/2012 - 4:21pm

Our COO was on Bloomberg's Lunch Money  today discussing trading and options order flow on Chesapeake Energy.  You can watch the Video:

 

One of the things we have been trying to do, along with Mark's Bloomberg appearences, has been to try and explain the Why of the trade, in hopes it will educate potential option traders about options.  Here is an explanation of the trade itself.

The Greek Alpha

Submitted by msebastian on Wed, 06/13/2012 - 6:28pm

Recently I came across the some chatter amoung some option students about Alpha.  Not in the kind hedge funds generate to make the big dough but the more vanilla kind.  This isn't the first go around, we have been getting these types of questions from our options mentorting students for some time.

When to sell and not sell the juice?

Submitted by atg on Fri, 03/16/2012 - 6:04pm

First Business:  We have a special offer on our CBOE and TheStreet.com sponsered class on the Trading the SPX as a Professional in New York.  You can get more info on the SPX class here.

Free SPX Gamma? Don't Mind if I Do

Submitted by acparis on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 4:51pm

REMINDER:  Our Christmas Sale Ends Saturday email us mark@optionpit.com for special deals on Option Pit Products!

Why Do Option Traders Beta Weight Gamma, and not Theta and Vega?

Submitted by msebastian on Thu, 12/30/2010 - 1:41pm

Most option traders can get delta, and even the weighting factor.  Gamma seems to be different; I often have new options mentoring students that do not have a full grasp of how gamma works.

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