The jargon of options trading sometimes turns people off, and maybe “volatility skew” is one of the biggest hurdles. So I’m going to explain the concept in a straightforward way, and then explain why volatility skew is something you should care very much about.
Volatility skew usually refers to the difference between the implied volatilities of options at different strike prices in the same expiration cycle. For the majority of stocks and indexes, options with high strike prices have low…
In early September, I tried to take the other side of the case against UNG, the popular natural gas ETF, regarding its perceived failure to track spot natural gas prices (“The Fuss Over Natural Gas“). At the time, I admitted that my defense – roughly, “it isn’t as bad as all that” – was anecdotal and didn’t address any sof the fundamental worries that caused the dislocation in the first place. I also warned that UNG shareholders…
People have been up in arms for months now about the troubles at the United States Natural Gas Fund, LP (NYSE: UNG), the ETF designed to track the price of natural gas. And, as far as I can tell, rightly so: the whole point of ETFs is that they were meant to be a nearly frictionless, relatively simple alternative to the clunky closed-end funds (CEF) and managed products that our parents and grandparents had to contend with. But UNG recently…
Friday, February 24, 2012
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