Press "Enter" to skip to content

Tag: options

‘Options Mike’ on the Coming Year-End Rally for Stocks (Szn 4, Ep. 33)

Published December 1, 2022

This podcast episode brought to you by Covey — Covey is designed to find, reward, and train the next top investment managers —from any background—that anyone can copy, so everyone can win.

Michael Pisani, aka Options Mike, joins the podcast to discuss why he’s anticipating a year-end rally in stocks. 

Content Highlights

  • It’s been a tough year for stocks and risk assets. That may be about to change (2:10);
  • Jerome Powell and the Fed have twice this year fooled markets into anticipating a pivot. But something has changed and the FOMC is no longer unanimous with its hawkishness (4:04);
  • There is still a lot of cash still on the sidelines (6:46);
  • Specific areas of the market Pisani likes here. And specific stocks, primarily Ford (F) and to a lesser extent General Motors (GM), both as longterm plays (11:42);
  • Another stock he’s bullish on: Snowflake (SNOW) and several that are candidates to go to zero (12:33);
  • An easy contrarian play: ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK). Yes, really (15:46);
  • Pisani’s take on cryptos (18:31);
  • Background on the guest (23:44).

More on Options Mike

Not intended as investment advice.

Video Highlights From Our YouTube Channel

More‘Options Mike’ on the Coming Year-End Rally for Stocks (Szn 4, Ep. 33)
Leave a Comment

There’s Still Time to Hedge Tail Risk — At Least for Stocks: Kris Sidial (Szn 4, Ep. 29)

Published October 19, 2022

Kris Sidial of The Ambrus Group joins the podcast to discuss tail-risk hedging: how it works, why it’s important, and how investors can still take advantage of volatility mispricings to protect themselves against further downside — at least in stocks.

Content Highlights

  • What is tail risk hedging? (3:19);
  • Traditional hedges haven’t worked, starting with the 60:40 approach. How might investors hedge stock and bond exposure? (6:15);
  • There are numerous options for investors to protect against downturns. But it’s not always as easy as buying put contracts on indexes (8:24);
  • Variance swaps, one way to compound returns on movements in volatility (10:25);
  • Thoughts on UK pensions and what might have caused issues in that segment of the market (15:27);
  • What investors are doing in this environment in terms of tail-risk hedging — there are still opportunities to hedge (20:02);
  • Background on the guest (30:08);
  • Discussion of systemic risk as a result of the layers of options trades and counterparties: “There is a systemic hazard taking place right now in the derivatives market” (39:32);
  • Speaking of risk, what about the regulatory environment? Are regulators asleep at the switch? Reasons to believe Dodd-Frank is perhaps not as effective as people think.. (43:37)
  • Thoughts on cryptocurrencies (50:01).

More About Kris Sidial

Quick Highlights From Our YouTube Channel

MoreThere’s Still Time to Hedge Tail Risk — At Least for Stocks: Kris Sidial (Szn 4, Ep. 29)
Leave a Comment

Watch for the Bounce in Equities: Brent Kochuba, Spot Gamma (Szn 4, Ep 7)

Published March 10, 2022

Brent Kochuba of Spot Gamma joins the podcast to discuss his view that there will likely be an equities rally into the March 18 options expiration.

This podcast was recorded Wednesday afternoon, March 9, 2022, and made available to premium subscribers that same day. Become a premium subscriber today by visiting Contrarian.Supercast.com or our Substack. There are many benefits beyond getting podcasts a few days (or more) early and not having to deal with annoying ads or announcements.

Content Highlights

  • Stocks have been selling off with the Nasdaq now officially in a bear market. But the guest is short-term bullish for reasons that can be traced to market makers hedging counterparty risk (2:39);
  • What about all the uncertainty with Russia-Ukraine? (5:57);
  • Stocks are up since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, likely because markets were hedged going in due to Fed tightening concerns (9:28);
  • What to make of the March 9 rally? A brief primer on gamma, vanna, and charm aka delta decay (11:02);
  • Similar gamma squeezes caused rallies in the past around options expiry (15:20);
  • Background on the guest (21:31);
  • The hedges investors have put on ahead of the FOMC meeting next week should lead to more risk-off. The lower bound for the S&P 500 is 4,100 (24:36);
  • Recent days have seen a change in options flow: Nvidia (NVDA) and crypto names such as Coinbase (COIN) have benefited along with Amazon (AMZN) and the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF) (26:50);
  • Liquidity is important and recent months have seen some of it leave the system (30:06).

More Information on the Guest

Video Highlights

MoreWatch for the Bounce in Equities: Brent Kochuba, Spot Gamma (Szn 4, Ep 7)
Comments closed