Monday 31 December 2012

Volatility...nuked

The VIX opened 2% lower..and just kept falling across the day. The closing decline of 20.7% is the largest decline since March, with the VIX settling the year @ 18.02. This was the first year since 2006 that the VIX never traded in the 30s.


VIX'60min



VIX'daily



VIX'weekly


Summary

In terms of the near term situation, I think we could be seeing a simple ABC wave'2 retracement. The closing action though shows no sign of the VIX decline stopping though, and the 17s are now imminent.

Despite todays massive drop, the doomer bears need to keep things in perspective.

We've now seen three days where VIX was trading in the 20s, and this is a significant event that many have been seeking since the indexes peaked at the mid-September FOMC.
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The bigger weekly VIX chart looks a real mess right now, but then...it did in mid July 2011..and we saw what came next.
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There should be strong support at the weekly 10MA @ 17.51, although as can be seen, even in summer 2011, we briefly broke below that.

On any basis though, going long VIX at these levels seems like an easy trade, and I will be seeking to pick up another VIX call option block within 2-3 days.