The Vol Shock Heard 'Round the World

Alpha Exchange

Lenin purportedly said, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” It’s difficult to understate how highly consequential these past few days have been. We live in an interconnected world of international rivalries, debt, trade, asset prices and economies. All kinds of tail probabilities become more live when a shock of this magnitude occurs. From a market standpoint, however, the higher vol goes, the greater likelihood that government officials blink in some way. The scars from the market chaos of the GFC and Covid remain and the lesson is not to create hard to fix but also urgent problems in the financial system. With this in mind, there could be an opportunity to fade the exceptionally high VIX level. I hope you find this discussion useful.