A complicated derivatives trade that may have helped power some of the U.S. stock market’s post-March rally is showing signs of unwinding, with potential consequences for the broader market, one veteran analyst warned Tuesday.
In his latest missive to subscribers, Michael Kramer, founder of Mott Capital Management and a longtime independent market analyst, said he’s seeing signs that a complicated play known as the “short volatility dispersion” trade is starting to unravel, threatening a rapid unwind, if the past is any guide.
Kramer has been tracking the trade in his newsletter for months. He believes sophisticated traders saw opportunity after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, when the Cboe Volatility Index, otherwise known as the Vix, traded as high as 30 intraday, its highest level of 2023. For months, the Vix continued to fall, cheapening the price of S&P 500 index options, while heavy demand for options tied to the market leaders drove implied volatility on those individual stocks higher, creating the volatility-dispersion effect from which the trade derives its name.
Kramer believes that during its heyday, this trade helped to create a perpetual motion machine. Buying individual stocks and individual equity call options should push the S&P 500 up, and implied volatility on the index down, inspiring more traders to pile in, creating a cyclical effect that pushed stocks higher and printed profits, until it didn’t.Financial conditions have begun to tighten again as the U.S. dollar has strengthened while global bond yields have risen recently.
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