Smashing Volatility

Smashing Volatility

Index Realized Vol Might Arrive Late

A complacent/invested crowd still expects Aug bumps

Scott Murray's avatar
Scott Murray
Jul 22, 2025
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This is the kind of thing you hear omnipresently right now, that markets are teed up for issues when TACO tariffs boomerang around again, earnings season wraps up, and Powell does nothing on the 30th. (In Patton, the German general correctly opined, “The absence of war will kill him” and the absence of vol will probably kill anyone hedging for August tumult.)

It’s a worst case; every manager is long the herded stuff only to watch as the market burns your attempt at allaying that risk; so much less alpha on top of the fact they were late to buy, unlike retail. Agony is in the forecast.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to take the rest of the month off as we wait for all this to come to a head, or not. Therefore, I have two solid trade ideas for the end of the month, even as I haven’t started getting long index volatility quite yet: I want put butterflies in SPX/QQQ, but the oven timer hasn’t dinged, so….

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