Spread Trading Strategies

Cool paper (found via Ernie Chan's blog) about extracting roll returns from VIX futures.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2094510

Basically, if VIX futures are in contango, short the closest front month with a matching ES contract (Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec), and do the reverse if backwardated. Eventually they should converge with "cash VIX."

Why am I posting this on a spread trading forum? Because you hedge your short (long) VIX futures position with a short (long) ES futures position, which sort of tracks the inverse of the cash VIX movement. Sort of...

Looking at the last few years of data, it has some promise - with some caveats:

1. When the market plunges and VIX goes nuts, your VIX/ES hedge ratio shifts, and you lose money. This happened in 2008 and August 2011. However, it's not a "Black Swan" kind of loss. The dirty hedge keeps the loss manageble.
2. Sometimes (see #1 above), front-month VIX futures will go "off the board" at a premium to cash VIX, which disrupts the convergence.

Based on the two contracts' volatility, the hedge ratio is 1:1, despite the notional value of the ES contract being 4x greater. (The VIX contract is WILD!)

Just some food for thought.
 
Bone,

I am looking more and more into spreads and took my first NG calendar spread, it was nice to hold several days with reduced risk.

I have two questions for you:

1. Is there a season to trade Crack Spreads? If you are trading HOCL Crack it would make sense that the winter month contracts would work, but I have not been watching long enough to know.

2. I have read that STIR futures are very popular because of the reduced risk, the only reason I can see for reduced risk is Eurodollars don't have the intraday swings like other products, are their other factors I am not aware of, cal spreads and butterflys look good on these also but I need to understand the Eurodollar more before trading it.

I included some Crack spread charts and the Nat Gas spread I took in the lower left.

Thanks
 

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Quote from bathrobe:

Bone,

I am looking more and more into spreads and took my first NG calendar spread, it was nice to hold several days with reduced risk.

I have two questions for you:

1. Is there a season to trade Crack Spreads? If you are trading HOCL Crack it would make sense that the winter month contracts would work, but I have not been watching long enough to know.

2. I have read that STIR futures are very popular because of the reduced risk, the only reason I can see for reduced risk is Eurodollars don't have the intraday swings like other products, are their other factors I am not aware of, cal spreads and butterflys look good on these also but I need to understand the Eurodollar more before trading it.

I included some Crack spread charts and the Nat Gas spread I took in the lower left.

Thanks
More...

If I may chip in with a question, I was looking at the CLX2-CLG3 calendar spread, and noticed that the charted differential was quite different from and moved a lot quicker than the Synthetic Spread, which in comparison hardly moved at times.

Two quite different trades? Thoughts and cautions please?
 
Quote from justrading:

If I may chip in with a question, I was looking at the CLX2-CLG3 calendar spread, and noticed that the charted differential was quite different from and moved a lot quicker than the Synthetic Spread, which in comparison hardly moved at times.

Two quite different trades? Thoughts and cautions please?
More...

The charted differential is not a tradeable price, because it only reflects the "last" trade from each contract - CLX2 could have traded at 95.05 at 11:01am, while CLG3 didn't trade until 11:05am at 96.05. What you didn't see was the fact that the CLG3 bid was at 96.00 at 11:01am and the CLX2 bid moved up to 95.10 at 11:03am, meaning the "tradeable spread" (the difference between the bids, or the bid on the short leg and the offer on the buy) may not have moved at all.

The exchange-supported spread reflects the actual, tradeable spread, and has its own, surprisingly deep order book.
 
Quote from drm7:

The charted differential is not a tradeable price, because it only reflects the "last" trade from each contract - CLX2 could have traded at 95.05 at 11:01am, while CLG3 didn't trade until 11:05am at 96.05. What you didn't see was the fact that the CLG3 bid was at 96.00 at 11:01am and the CLX2 bid moved up to 95.10 at 11:03am, meaning the "tradeable spread" (the difference between the bids, or the bid on the short leg and the offer on the buy) may not have moved at all.

The exchange-supported spread reflects the actual, tradeable spread, and has its own, surprisingly deep order book.
More...

Very clear explanation, thank you.
 
Quote from deucy28:

New chart posted Sunday night for prospective pair trade for myself.

See forum TRADING
thread Charts of Note


http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3621503#post3621503
More...


The above is referencing

Short HON
Long BA

I posted the subsequent additional levels that got put on in Pair Trading Strategy Journal thread (Journals Forum)


A GREAT 2 days for holding on after a week and a half of the snot geting kicked out of you (actually opportunities to add layers).


http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3637000#post3637000
 
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