"Most et traders will find these trade quite illogically" isn't advice, it's just name-calling. And it's juvenile, as is bragging about this-or-that trade that worked out well for you. If you have actual <i>advice</i> about trading vol to offer, please do share.
i think you are over reacting and clearly wrong on my intent. in any case i doubt i could change your mind. you have called me names far more than i have allegedly here. i've made it rod, so i felt like giving a tidbit back. i stand by my original point; most traders should not go near these without extensive curve studies. there can be unlimited loss unlike a spread in options. that's all the free advice i'll give a dope like you.
Whoa, hold the presses!... After coming onto the thread, insulting the people on elitetrader, and posting a clipping from a broker statement that may or may not be your own,... <i>this</i> is your great insight?
I don't think the insight makes much sense. Of all the various futures instruments listed by the CME, this is probably one of the *least* likely to go to infinity or zero.
you are wrong. prices can and will go from positive to negative. no where did i say infinity, but there is no maximum loss or gain as in option spreads. therefore i say before vol curve trading you must spend much time learning the idiosyncrasies of convergence, etc. although i would never tell anyone my edges; telling you where to start is a better insight than what i had. it does me no good to prove myself; although it can be maddening to a good trader when provoked by having his quotes spun wrongly. rod, yeah..that was not my p/l. i borrowed it from someone. one can hope maybe someday you will realize what an utter moron you are. omg, really amazing, you make me so glad i am me. i'm done here.
Okay, let's borrow this thread and talk about GVX then. The spread seems pretty wide.. but at least it's tradeable if you have a view on gold volatility. Let me just talk this out. When I look at the April GVX futures, current market is 18.61/19.61. This contract expires at the end of Feb, 30 days before April GC options expire. So... the market is expecting that gold volatility will be in the 18.61/19.61 range at the end of Feb. GVX index is currently at 18.39, so market expectation is that gold volatility will be climbing. The numbers here are all a little confusing. When I look at actual implied volatility (calculated thru IB's option trader)... I see IV in the 15-16% range for the front month, and 17% range for the April options. I wonder why GVX index is so significantly off from the IB calculation.
I mentioned in another thread -- BBG seems to show a few trades today in the J contract, most recent print was 19.15.
Totally different topic, but how worthwhile is a Bloomberg terminal? Oh hell, I'll put up a thread in the career trader board about that.