Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Trading Through the Volatility Drought

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(and Why It May Finally Be Ending)

For what feels like an eternity, options traders have been staring at one of the tightest volatility clusters we’ve seen in years. Premiums have been lean. The usual fat opportunities to sell risk have been slim. It’s been like sitting in the calm before a storm, waiting for movement that just won’t come.

But here’s the interesting part: that cluster is starting to spread out. If you pull up a volatility chart, you’ll notice the compression loosening. The market may not have broken out yet, but the early signs are there, and those signals matter for traders who’ve felt handcuffed by months of low implied volatility.

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