Has anybody read the article by Michael Kramer about the possible “short volatility dispersion” play unravelling. I found a summary article on TradeView when looking at the Microsoft chart (it’s listed yesterday). He is saying that there has been a large bet placed this year on the S&P500. I understand hedging and understand the idea of placing calls on individual companies hedged by an opposite bet on the index as a whole (ie long on individual companies and short on the index). What I am struggling to understand are the repeated references to this “play” being based on a volatility index. I don’t understand the dependence on the cboe (vix). Does anybody understand why this play/bet is based on vix and only works if vix is low? Just curious and like to understand these things
Did you try searching for an answer?
Hi @Kennybobs I’ve done some research on the cboe/vix and it is an interesting forward looking index (rather than an indicator based on historical data). It is based on futures and therefore has a correlation to the overall market sentiment. Thus the index reflects when there is pessimism regarding the future market. The play/bet therefore makes more sense - long positions on specific companies while overall market sentiment is positive.