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 […]
Category: Markets

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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? […]

Nowhere to run… Nowhere to hide
September has been rather nasty (so far) not just in equities, but across the various asset classes purporting to provide diversification from such down turns. After today’s sell off, the S&P 500 is down around -9% for the month. Gold is off about -3%, Commodities down about -5%, and bonds and TIPS are likewise slightly […]

A Professor, Prop Trader, & Risk Manager Walk Into a Bar, with Victor Canto
The “bar” we walk into in this episode is one that specializes in blending the unique flavors of beta and alpha, and our mixologists are Victor Canto, Chief Economist of Cadhina & Co, and Donn Stobierski & Jim Kleinops, the Founders and Managing Members at Black Bear Capital Advisors joining us to talk about convexity […]

Asset Class Scoreboard: August 2020
July to August was probably the least movement across that board that we’ve seen so far in 2020. U.S. stocks continue to top the board month over month, as well as U.S. real estate and commodities continuing to trail in the red. Are commodities going to be able to move out of double digit red […]

Retail Traders Rejoice
Has there ever been a better time to be an individual trader, or retail trader as they are sometimes condescendingly called in the professional trading industry. What with Dave Portnoy (DDTG) saying (correctly for now) that stocks only go higher, or Robinhood forcing nearly all brokerages to offer commission free trades for stocks and fractional […]