Subdued Vol Meets Negative Gamma Weakness in AI-related stocks dominated market headlines last week, most notably for Oracle and Broadcom. This pushed the market downward, before the rebound on Thursday and Friday. Despite the market trending down for three consecutive days, implied volatility remained surprisingly subdued: put skew remained average, and ATM implied volatility sat […]
negative gamma
FOMC Reset: Vol Crushes, Stocks Lift Higher
Last week began with quiet anticipation of Wednesday’s FOMC. When the Fed announced the 25 basis point rate cut and Treasury bill purchases, the reaction was immediate. Equities surged, with the SPX breaking out above our 6,845 Volatility Trigger to approach all-time-highs near the 6,900 resistance level. The options market had priced in meaningful event-related volatility surrounding FOMC, and […]
Nomura: “Max Short Gamma” Pain… But Relief Is Coming
Via ZH: Earlier this week we pointed out a bizarre divergence in the “greeks” – while the Nasdaq had slumped into negative gamma territory, which is where dealers are forced to sell more as the Nasdaq slides lower creating a feedback loop where selling begets selling, even as the S&P still remained in positive gamma […]
Nomura June OPEX Update
“Following Friday’s Serial/Quarterly options expiry, we continue to see potential for a ‘Gamma Unclenching’ over the following 1w-2w period with currently ~47% of the $Gamma set to run-off” – Nomura’s Charlie Nomura marks a much lower gamma flip point of June options expiration, which would suggest markets may open in more positive gamma territory after […]
June Selloff Review
Markets were unable to hold gains on Friday after a sharp selloff on Thursday. While we initially opened over the gamma flip zone, markets broke that 3075 area and immediately sold down to the 3000 strike. This 3000 level is where we calculated the most options gamma and served as support. All of these levels […]
Zero Gamma = Zero Gravity
We posted a few days ago about the “right” tail risk and the possibility of a market rally. In a note to subscribers we added to this, suggesting the market may be in an airpocket. Specifically: “zero gravity”. Most of you are probably familiar with those flights which take you to the edge of space […]
Corona Market: Reviewing Right Tail Risk
This is being written just before the 3/26 unemployment data release which is forecasting as much as 2 million unemployment due to the economic shutdown related to Coronavirus. There is also a Stimulus Bill “pending“. While we are all aware of the downside risks here, here is a scenario for a major move to the […]
SpotGamma Report for: 03/13/2020 AM
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The Friday Option Position “Blowout”
ZeroHedge posted an article Friday that caught a lot of attention. Basically they claim that a firm got a tap on the shoulder from the risk department and were forced to close out positions. This may also have been a Margin Call. If someone got tagged (allegedly) doesn’t really matter to us, what happened in […]
Poor Liquidity & Negative Gamma: Volatile Stuff
We’ve written extensively about negative gamma and poor liquidity during volatile markets, and wanted to post some of those effects in real time. ZH posted an article framing how bad liquidity in ES futures is, note the chart below: as the following chart from Deutsche Bank shows, overall liquidity for S&P500 futures has fallen to all […]