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Tag: volatility

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

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).

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

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).

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Szn 4, Ep 6: The ‘Bad Times Are Already Here,’ With Acquirers Funds’ Tobias Carlisle

Tobias Carlisle of Acquirers Funds rejoins the podcast to discuss the stock market’s latest dramatic reversal, this time over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and why investors may be a bit too bullish at present…

Content Highlights

  • How to take the huge reversal last week with Russia-Ukraine? (3:11)
  • Every war starts with “the boys will be home by Christmas,” but most tend to drag on longer than anticipated. Sometimes a lot longer… (5:13);
  • Growth stocks have been in correction territory for some time. Are they in a bear market? Probably… (8:52);
  • The interest rate cycle has not started tightening but inflation has the Fed caught between a rock and a hard place (15:53);
  • Energy and energy stocks are still cheap. Then there are defense contractors. Lockheed Martin (LMT) has benefited from Russia-Ukraine and Carlisle is a holder… (21:25);
  • Facebook aka Meta (FB) is also cheap (23:20);
  • Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs: Dead as Disco (30:12);
  • The aim of investing is to survive the bad times and they are “probably here” (37:18).

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