Implied volatility over the past few weeks has managed to blue-ball me worse than my first high school date. At least back then I finally got lucky on the third turn. But this attention whoring bitch tease of a market just keeps on making hot promises and then never puts out. That at least until yesterday afternoon when the FOMC – unexpectedly – put some fear of God into what has become a long term manic depressive but short term over complacent marketplace.

In case you wonder, no I didn’t just pull that one out of my rectum, and yes it’s a real thing. In fact vomma is officially listed as one of the option greeks (check it out over on Investopedia). And it also happens to be one of the more exotic indicators of implied volatility that is very carefully monitored by professional option traders. And let me assure you that they are ALL keeping a very close eye on it this very week. But why?

There really isn’t anything left to be said about this raging bull market that I haven’t already covered in the past week or two. It wants to go up and will continue to go up until the last buyer has been found. Which may be tomorrow or it may be months from now. Who knows?!! But what we do know for sure is that being short in this market is going to be a very painful experience. Or is it?

I’m a bit of a history buff and beside general curiosity it’s for a very pragmatic reason. Looking back in time teaches you a lot more about human nature and the way the world works than the most erudite of academics or philosophers. The quote ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ has recently been attributed to Rom Emmanuel but Winston Churchill is claimed of having used it and most likely he himself picked it up somewhere during his long and eventful life.