Author: Vineer Bhansali
What’s Wrong With US Treasury’s Duration?
For someone who has now traded bonds professionally for over 30 years, the recent behavior of the bond market has been nothing short of incredible. For those who think of the bond market as a shelter from equity market storms, the results have been mixed, to be charitable. On the […]
Reliability Matters! Tariff Tumult Market Scorecard (So Far)
The past few days in the markets have brought forth the fundamental question of portfolio construction and asset allocation: in periods of stress and volatility, how can one keep a portfolio resilient? Anyone can throw money at the stock market and look like a genius when it is on a […]
Long-Term Tail Hedging Is Still Cheap
While the events of the last week have resulted in a sharp flight out of stocks and a spike in short-term volatility, long-term volatility has barely budged. As a consequence, even credit spreads, though widening a little bit, have barely registered any possibility of a recession and credit defaults. In […]
Games Countries Play: Tariffs, Threats and Tail Risks
As a market participant today, it is clear to most that the dominant driver of market performance, at least in the short term, is likely to be how the global game of tariffs and threats plays out. What is not clear is (1) What type of game it is (2) […]
What’s Up With Volatility
The current selloff in the S&P 500 started around February 19, 2025 from a level of approximately 6150, which was a record high. In a matter of less than a month the S&P 500 dropped to its level as of this writing of 5625, i.e. an 8.5% decline. The bottom […]
My Burgers and Bonds Checklist
I have to confess to something. I grew up completely vegetarian in India. When I came to the US at the age of 18, I was a good tennis player, but had almost no strength which is required for the kind of tennis played in college here. After getting demolished […]
Is Quantum Computing Investable As The Next AI?
The boom and bust and re-boom in quantum computing stocks over the last few weeks (look for example at the price gain and collapse and re-gain of RGTI, QBTS, QUBT, IONQ and others) has drawn comments from analysts that, on the one hand, equate quantum computing with a “bubble,” and […]
Going for Gold… Again
In March of 2023, about eighteen months ago, I wrote a piece in this forum titled “GITA: Gold Is The Alternative” (see here), suggesting that investors should look at gold as an investment for various reasons listed in that piece. At the time, the price of gold was around $1,979 […]
Monetizing Volatility Spikes
This week has been one for the record books…if you are a volatility trading nerd like the three of us, it was also a very active, and sleepless week. As we tell our clients, this is what you pay us for – we stay awake so you can sleep. One […]
How The Carry Trade Crashed The Market, Again, And What Comes Next
Over the last few days, the sudden volatility in the markets has resulted in clients, friends and family (especially my wife) all wondering what just happened, and more important, what happens next. For sure everyone by now has read that one of the culprits was the action by the Bank […]
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