In part 2 of this series I am going to dumb down a key aspect of bear markets that has largely remained unknown to the vast majority of retail traders. It is important to embrace the fact that while the gray unwashed masses focus solely on the daily gyrations of the VIX professional traders instead religiously follow an exotic construct called the Implied Volatility Term Structure (IVTS).

Here I am – stuck in our vacation rental thanks to a nationwide quarantine taking effect this morning – and honestly I could not be happier. Although I have never been a perma-bear the past decade of eternal effervescence had become the bane of my existence. Living in Valencia I increasingly noticed it everywhere around me as unbridled mass tourism is a prime litmus test for an economic bubble that’s just waiting to be pricked. Beyond mere ‘moral hazard’ the grand financial experiment of the 21st century wrought cultural and social implications that ended up destroying families and inter-personal relationships on a mass scale, and in the process pitted [...]

When it comes to financial news in particular, can you remember reading a single bullish headline over the past week? Or perhaps over the past month? The past year? Past decade? Me neither. Instead it’s been doom & gloom every step on the way up from SPX 667 back in 2008 to now over 3300 eleven and some years later. If nothing else the political culture war triggered by the election of Donald J. Trump has only served to exacerbate a mainstream media landscape addicted to that next juicy bit of angst inciting clickbait.