Does anyone know how much banks used to charge for trading these products before the advent of listed VIX futures more than a decade ago? And how the numbers evolved over the years. I assume it would cost a lot higher than VIX exchange and brokerage fees, but wonder whether it was 10x or 100x the magnitude, and how they adjusted when the listed VIX space became more and more popular. Appreciate any insights or anecdotes, thanks.
In 2005-2006 variance swaps were the shit, you can trade them super-liquidly. I recall getting 5-7bp wide markets. There were funds who did almost only variance swaps. Crisis put an end to it, with counterparty risks and all. Nowdays, a buyside client can get it about 7-10bps wide, which is about double to how wide VIX futures trade. Obviously, it depends on the size - it's much easier to trade 200x5 of consecutive VIX futures than to get a market in a million of vega notional. Capped var (which is very popular with the buysiders now) is wider too, since the dealer is forced to keep the gap risk.
Transaction costs on VIX futures include $1.7 per lot of exchange fees plus $1-2 of brokerage. So 5-7bps wide was actually pretty tight considering it is usually 5bps wide on exchange these days, assuming they did not charge extra fees on top of the bid ask spread.
Yeah, fees do add up. However, anything OTC is a PIA in many aspects - eg on an unwind you might have dealers trying to take advantage and have to deal with novation