The VIX Index and Volatility-Based Global Indexes and Trading Instruments: A Guide to Investment and Trading Features

The VIX Index and Volatility-Based Global Indexes and Trading Instruments: A Guide to Investment and Trading Features
Author: Matthew T. Moran
Publisher: CFA Institute Research Foundation
Total Pages: 49
Release: 2020-04-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1944960961

During the past two decades, the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX® Index), a key measure of investor sentiment and 30-day future volatility expectations, has generated much investor attention because of its unique and powerful features. The introduction of VIX futures in 2004, VIX options in 2006, and other volatility-related trading instruments provided traders and investors access to exchange-traded vehicles for taking long and short exposures to expected S&P 500 Index volatility for a particular time frame. Certain VIX-related tradable products may provide benefits when used as tools for tail-risk hedging, diversification, risk management, or alpha generation. Gauges of expected stock market volatility for various regions include the VIX Index (United States), AXVI Index (Australia), VHSI Index (Hong Kong), NVIX Index (India) and VSTOXX Index (Europe). All five of these volatility indexes had negative correlations with their related stock indexes price movements, and all five volatility indexes rose more than 50% in 2008. Although the five volatility indexes are not investable, investors can explore VIX-based benchmark indexes that show the performance of hypothetical investment strategies using VIX futures or options. Before investing in volatility-related products, investors should closely study the pricing, roll cost, and volatility features of the tradable products and read the applicable prospectuses and risk disclosure statements.

The VIX Index and Volatility-Based Global Indexes and Trading Instruments - A Guide to Investment and Trading Features

The VIX Index and Volatility-Based Global Indexes and Trading Instruments - A Guide to Investment and Trading Features
Author: Matthew T. Moran
Publisher:
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2020
Genre:
ISBN:

During the past two decades, the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX® Index), a key measure of investor sentiment and 30-day future volatility expectations, has generated much investor attention because of its unique and powerful features. The introduction of VIX futures in 2004, VIX options in 2006, and other volatility-related trading instruments provided traders and investors access to exchange-traded vehicles for taking long and short exposures to expected S&P 500 Index volatility for a particular time frame. Certain VIX-related tradable products may provide benefits when used as tools for tail-risk hedging, diversification, risk management, or alpha generation. Gauges of expected stock market volatility for various regions include the VIX Index (United States), AXVI Index (Australia), VHSI Index (Hong Kong), NVIX Index (India) and VSTOXX Index (Europe). All five of these volatility indexes had negative correlations with their related stock indexes price movements, and all five volatility indexes rose more than 50% in 2008. Although the five volatility indexes are not investable, investors can explore VIX-based benchmark indexes that show the performance of hypothetical investment strategies using VIX futures or options. Before investing in volatility-related products, investors should closely study the pricing, roll cost, and volatility features of the tradable products and read the applicable prospectuses and risk disclosure statements.

Trading VIX Derivatives

Trading VIX Derivatives
Author: Russell Rhoads
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2011-07-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1118118480

A guide to using the VIX to forecast and trade markets Known as the fear index, the VIX provides a snapshot of expectations about future stock market volatility and generally moves inversely to the overall stock market. Trading VIX Derivatives will show you how to use the Chicago Board Options Exchange's S&P 500 volatility index to gauge fear and greed in the market, use market volatility to your advantage, and hedge stock portfolios. Engaging and informative, this book skillfully explains the mechanics and strategies associated with trading VIX options, futures, exchange traded notes, and options on exchange traded notes. Many market participants look at the VIX to help understand market sentiment and predict turning points. With a slew of VIX index trading products now available, traders can use a variety of strategies to speculate outright on the direction of market volatility, but they can also utilize these products in conjunction with other instruments to create spread trades or hedge their overall risk. Reviews how to use the VIX to forecast market turning points, as well as reveals what it takes to implement trading strategies using VIX options, futures, and ETNs Accessible to active individual traders, but sufficiently sophisticated for professional traders Offers insights on how volatility-based strategies can be used to provide diversification and enhance returns Written by Russell Rhoads, a top instructor at the CBOE's Options Institute, this book reflects on the wide range of uses associated with the VIX and will interest anyone looking for profitable new forecasting and trading techniques.

The VIX Trader's Handbook

The VIX Trader's Handbook
Author: Russell Rhoads
Publisher: Harriman House Limited
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0857197126

Russell Rhoads is one of America’s leading experts on VIX, the Volatility Index. In The VIX Trader’s Handbook he takes a deep dive into all things associated with volatility indexes and related trading vehicles. The handbook begins with an explanation of what VIX is, how it is calculated, and why it behaves the way it does in various market environments. It also explains the various methods of getting exposure to volatility through listed markets. The focus then moves on to demonstrate how traders take advantage of various scenarios using futures, options, or ETPs linked to the performance of VIX. Finally, a comprehensive review is presented of volatility events that shook the markets, including the 1987 crash, Great Financial Crisis, 2010 flash crash, and the 2020 pandemic. By understanding how VIX behaved leading up to these market shocks, and reacted afterwards, traders can better equip themselves ahead of future events. A wide variety of strategies that are implemented in both bearish and bullish equity markets are introduced and covered extensively throughout. The VIX Trader’s Handbook is essential reading for all those who are intending to trade volatility—from those who wish to gain an understanding of how VIX and the related trading products behave, to those intending to hedge equity exposure or take advantage of the persistent overpricing of option volatility. You won’t want to trade volatility without it.

The Causal Relationship between the S&P 500 and the VIX Index

The Causal Relationship between the S&P 500 and the VIX Index
Author: Florian Auinger
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 102
Release: 2015-02-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3658089695

Florian Auinger highlights the core weaknesses and sources of criticism regarding the VIX Index as an indicator for the future development of financial market volatility. Furthermore, it is proven that there is no statistically significant causal relationship between the VIX and the S&P 500. As a consequence, the forecastability is not given in both directions. Obviously, there must be at least one additional variable that has a strong influence on market volatility such as emotions which, according to financial market experts, are considered to play a more and more important role in investment decisions.

Tracking the VIX Index

Tracking the VIX Index
Author: Athanasios Fassas
Publisher:
Total Pages: 29
Release: 2014
Genre:
ISBN:

Volatility has emerged as an important distinct asset class over the past decade. The popularity of volatility stems from its unique properties, namely its negative correlation with equity returns and its usefulness as insurance against tail risk. Trading applications of volatility-related securities and financial instruments involve among others short-term trading in order to exploit shifts in volatility (realized, implied or expected implied volatility), hedging an equity exposure and modifying the risk of an asset allocation mix.This paper examines the tracking performance of VIX futures and seven popular volatility Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) on the spot VIX index. The empirical findings suggest limited tracking ability of all the products under review as the magnitude of the respective tracking errors is significant. Therefore, even though there is a plethora of volatility products nowadays, there is still potential room for additional VIX ETP offerings that would attempt to track spot VIX following either a physical or a synthetic replication method.

Trading Volatility ETFs

Trading Volatility ETFs
Author: Adam Warner
Publisher: FT Press
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2011-12-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0132946610

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Volatility is one of the defining characteristics of today’s global markets. As a result, many traders are seeking better ways to profit from their bets on shifting volatility. Once, the primary way to trade volatility was to buy and sell standard calls and puts. Then, the world discovered VIX, the so-called “Fear Index.” Next, the CBOE devised ways to trade the VIX: first VIX futures, and then VIX options. Unfortunately, not everyone can trade futures; hence, the latest of innovations derived from ETFs are volatility-based Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs): first VXX, then VXZ, and now more than two dozen additional competitors. These debt instruments can be excellent trading and hedging vehicles, but they don’t perfectly track the VIX. As a result, it’s tricky to use them reliably, and many traders who’ve experimented with them have suffered significant losses. In Trading Volatility ETFs, Adam Warner explains the structures of VXX and VXZ, reveals how they’ve worked in the past, and projects their behavior in different market environments. He systematically demystifies their subtleties, explains who should and shouldn’t use them, and describes how they can best be applied in effective hedging and trading.

The VIX, the Variance Premium and Stock Market Volatility

The VIX, the Variance Premium and Stock Market Volatility
Author: Geert Bekaert
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2013
Genre: Economics
ISBN:

We decompose the squared VIX index, derived from US S&P500 options prices, into the conditional variance of stock returns and the equity variance premium. The latter is increasing in risk aversion in a wide variety of economic settings. We tackle several measurement issues assessing a plethora of state-of-the-art volatility forecasting models. We then examine the predictive power of the VIX and its two components for stock market returns and economic activity. The variance premium predicts stock returns but the conditional stock market variance predicts economic activity, and is more contemporaneously correlated with financial instability than is the variance premium.