Volatility Views 159: The VXUP and VXDN Surprise

Volatility Review: Looks like the market started taking the weekend out on Thursday, and never looked back.

• VIX Cash: Low: 12.09, High: 13.27
• S&P 30-Day realized: 10, S&P 60-Day realized: 11 VVIX: 74.50 - on the lower end of its recent range.
• Skew Index: 121.11 - also on the low end of recent range.
• Put vs SPX White Paper: A Leveraged Portfolio Management Approach Applying The CBOE S&P 500 PutWrite Index.
• VIX Options: A strong volume week. 945K Contracts on Monday, 750k Tuesday, 700k Wednesday and only 350k Thursday.
• VIX Up / VIX Down: Despite our doubts last week, the product is doing heavy volume.
• Question from IVDaily - Please explain the VXUP and VXDN products to me. I am very confused. What am I getting if I buy this thing? Its not really spot VIX that I am getting, but the actual percentage move in the spot VIX, correct? What does this paired contract thing mean? Do I have to wait for someone to sell VXUP before I can buy the VXDN and vice versa? Shed some more light into the darkness please guys.

Volatility Voicemail: Listener questions and comments

• Question from Gerry Engle - Hola fellows. Like the programs especially Option Block and Volatility Views. I noticed you guys do not talk much about technicals. The few times you have mentioned them you seem to take a dim view of them. Why is that? Are there no technicals that you feel are useful for options traders to pay attention to? What about volatility technicals?
• Question from Ibrahim Hawash: Hi Mark. This is Contrails again, after several months away from options I forayed into Forex my original trading stumping ground smile emoticon I learned a lot about price action support and resistance, trend lines, pivots etc... I am looking now into options for position trading. I am so comfortable doing directional trades, bullish and bearish speculation and not yet into vol trading. My question is if I find a stock sitting on strong support and at a very low IV% (MU and PG is what I am looking at) along with confirming buying volume would you buy a OTM or ITM calls? I have a feeling you will say why not sell puts smile emoticon but let’s stick with calls for now given my account restriction. Is there a golden rule on choosing ITM vs OTM in this situation? I read that only buy ITM calls because OTM expire worthless as in hear.
• Also my understanding that when IV% is very low you would not buy call vertical spread and choose to buy calls, is this correct? I also have a question, do leap options IV increase at earning times along with shorter expiration options? One more thing, forgot to ask that I am looking to buy calls expiring in 2-3 months and I am looking at daily candle stick charts.

Crystal Ball: Reckless prognostication. Will there be a Tuesday morning pop?