For every option buyer, there is a seller. The brave souls who are accused of picking up pennies in front of a freight train. But are they dumb? Crazy? Or just better at timing the market than the rest of us? Understanding option strategies which involve collecting premium seems easy, but there’s way more that […]
Category: Why Alternatives?
26
Oct
2020
Event Vol and the Key US Election Event(s)
While it’s long been a practice to trade volatility in single name stocks around an event like earnings, with the ability to see the distinct amount of volatility priced into the earnings move – event vol around macro level events has been a less talked about trade. There’s many reasons for that, chief among them […]
22
Oct
2020
Debunking Trend Following’s Dead Theories with Kathryn Kaminski
Is trend following too big? Can managed futures do it without the bond tailwind they’ve had for 30 years? Does globalization take away diversification? We’re debunking these trend following myths/truths (?) in today’s podcast – and today’s guest is ideal to take us through the ins-and-outs of these trend following theories. We’re joined by Kathryn […]
19
Oct
2020
China (partially) Opens Up to Foreign Investment
Recently the CSRC, People’s Bank of China, and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange finally released measures for something we’ve been patiently waiting (and working tirelessly at) for over 2 years: guidelines expanding the scope of investable products for Foreign Institutional Investors and RMB Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (which we’ll collectively just refer to as […]
15
Oct
2020
Vol Curves and Vanna Charm with Cem Karsan
Today’s pod is all about word play playing into alternative investment. How does Jam Croissant relate to Cem Karsan? What about Vanna Charm and options definitions? Or the forever popular “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” evolving to “nothing is ever risk free”? To get together the definitions, explanations, and educated facts on […]
08
Oct
2020
Super Storms, Mathematical Modeling, and Hurricane Hunting with Dr. Jeff Masters
With storms named Gamma and Delta making their way to US shores – we really couldn’t have timed this release better from a hurricane-content-meets-alts-investment podcast; it’s the: perfect storm (buh-dum-ch). Today’s guest is creator of Weather Underground and the Cat 6 blog, a person who has flown through an actual hurricane, and a whiz at […]
05
Oct
2020
Just how crazy was September for VIX Traders?
Oil going negative. The Swiss Franc de-pegging from the US Dollar. The Dow losing 1000 points in 36 minutes in the flash crash. These were all outlier events there in plain sight, reported ad nauseum in the financial press. But the largest front month VIX index loss during a down month in the S&P 500 […]
02
Oct
2020
Asset Class Scoreboard: September 2020
Ouch – after months of rallying classes, September was a rough one (almost a callback to our red wedding in March, but a little better). The September sell-off was all we needed to make nearly all the asset classes head right back into the red, and with anticipated volatility surrounding the election, and now with […]
01
Oct
2020
Bull Markets, Behavioral Biases, and Blogs with Baird’s Michael Antonelli
If men are from Mars and women from Venus, it often feels like stock/bond investors are from Earth and us Alternative Investment folks are from Vulcan. We’re digging in with the Bull and Baird blog’s author and Baird market analyst Michael Antonelli to hear how the earthlings (aka wealth management clients) actually think about investments, […]
24
Sep
2020
Sequencing, Skew, and (Option) Strikes with Hari Krishnan
We’re joined by option guru and author of ‘The Second Leg Down’ in this episode to talk through the real-time test of market crashes and volatility dynamics we’ve witnessed since February. Is our guest’s theory on volatility sequencing proving its worth in this environment of bigger VIX spikes, oil going negative, and retail trader flow? […]
