Rofl like striking the lottery? Sorry but the chances of that happening before they turn insolvent is extremely remote. Besides, a crash is not going to be played out in one day, a good trader should be able to capture a good 60% of the down move anyway. Attempting to capture the first/last 8th of a move is very costly, I learned that the hard way when I was a newb.
It's not like the more sophisticated (large) index put buyers are trying to catch a down move. They are hedging long exposure that's all. Once you sit on a 7% gain for the year it's prudent to lock in the performance with some SPY/IWM puts while the market looks vulnerable.
A complete reversal on huge volume in the index futures dow mini 228,215 contracts traded. You never know the overnight team may get it back to 13500 by morning.
Straddle would maybe work here due to volatility. The SPooz are sitting barely above 1500...could have an interesting finish to the week. Breadth F***ing blew as usual too...this market has more problems than the indices are putting on the table.