OK, here's a perfect example of the modest statistical quirks in the VIX that makes tracking each tweak to the penny a bit of a waste of time. The SPX is slightly up, under .5% as I type. VXX, the ETN that proxies for a 30 day VIX future is down .5%. That's beyond in line, that's almost perfect ... Read more

Expiration week is traditionally strong. Except when it's not. Ouch. Down 4.8% already this week. Trading the Odds runs some numbers, and has this for us. Due to the fact that expiration week is regularly a favorable time frame for the markets, and the SPX is already down -4.88% during ... Re ... Read more

So guess what, the VIX has gone south. Now of course part of it relates to the fact the market is strong, the other part is for the factors we laid out earlier (news out and it's Friday). But remember always, you can't trade that VIX you see on the screen unless you trade actual SPX options. ... Read more

As noted recently, INO's MarketClub did a masterful job in selling crude near the top and patiently remaining out of the thing until they got a green buy triangle. If I were a trading system user, it would have saved me some ill fated bottom fishing exercise. They are bullish on crude now and correl ... Read more

Got some good comments in regards to this segment of a post the other day. The Inverse relationship between VIX and SPX has much to do with the skew of the options board and the formula used in any volatility calculation. What I mean is in normal skew, the lower the strike, the higher the ... Read more

In my voluminous research to bring you nothing but the finest VIX bikini pictures........ I mean options data........, I ran some numbers on VIX extremes. Over roughly 20 years data, not including 2008 however, I found 40 instances where SPX rallies of 1.5% or greater were accompanied with VIX ... Read more

Hey, so on the subject of whether these Inverses add to market volatility, I had this sage opinion back in June. We are all trained to just assume the inverse relationship between the VIX and SPX. But it is not always so, especially over longer time horizons. The tech bubble provides a ... Rea ... Read more

Comparing the S&P 500 Index (SPX) now versus 2002 on a 160-month moving average basis doesn't look promising,, though monthly closes are most important. Looking at the chart below, you can see that the 160-month trendline was never violated intra-month in 2002. If one ... Read more