Apologies in advance for thinking of this show every time I hear the name McMillan. As we've pointed out many many times lately, options volatility remains wildly overpriced compared to realized volatility whether you look at individual stocks or indices. When we see pricing out of line like ... Read more

Some ETF oddities today. One I think I can explain, the underperformance of the Russell vs. SPX. Friday was International Game the Russell Rebalance Day, and it seems the play was chasing anything going into the Russell 2000 right on the bell. Which I suspect is leading to modest underperformanc ... Read more

Some trading in UPL via Schaeffer's. Ultra Petroleum Corp. ( UPL : sentiment , chart , options ) saw a spike in options trading on Friday, as more than 46,300 contracts changed hands. This volume is more than 12 times the stock's average daily trading volume of 3,806 contracts, ac ... Read ... Read more

So what's doing in VIX products these days? Upside buying in August says Jamie here. Big 3:1 on Friday where the customer sells 1 Aug 32.5 call vs. buying 3 August 45 calls. As Jamie points out, he'll need the VIX over 49 to make some coin on it. But of course we know not what he has on againt ... Read more

Ed McMahon, Farrah, Tito Jackson's younger brother, and now Billy Mays , oy ... Read the full post ... Read more

Rob from Quantifiable Edges , Bill from VIX and More , and yours truly, had a little email conversation the other day regarding the VIX:VXV ratio. To refresh, VXV is basically the VIX for normalized 90 day SPX options. So the thinking is that if the VIX gets too low relative to VXV, that' ... Read more

So I upgraded the MLB ap on my Iphone to get the new live game videos. As my son quickly discovered it's about 30 seconds to a minute behind the actual game, which obviously is no big deal if that's how you're watching the game (and I should note that MLB TV online has the same time lag). But ... Read more

OK, actually not, but my attendance was very spotty this week. Will strive for better next week as I wonder what happens to guys that had legitimate Appalachian Hiking trips all lined up for the holiday weekend? Anyway, look for one s-l-o-w trade next week, although tough to top today for lack ... Read more

Margeret Brennan and her twin sister ....Margaret....have apparently left CNBC for Bloomberg. What will Bill Griffeth do? And who will report on the retailers now? Speaking of which. SPDR Retail Trust (XRT) is up 3 cents to $27.53 and the July 24 - 25 - 26 put fly is bought 4000X for 11 cents ... Read more

I can't think of a more touching tribute to MJ than this Alien Ant Farm cover of "Smooth Criminal". And in another fitting memorial, looks like we have some more Ultra's to play with soon. ProFunds Group, the world’s largest manager of short and leveraged funds1, announced today that ... Read more