Pressure cooker
Speculative activity in the options market has reached never-before-seen heights and doesn't show any sign of slowing. This is thanks in large part to stocks like Apple and Tesla. While traders are buying short-term calls to goose their accounts as much as possible, somebody has to manage risk on the other side. That's a big reason why we're seeing the Nasdaq 100 climb 1% nearly every day, but the VXN "fear gauge" is rising along with it. This is common in commodity markets like oil and gold - it's nearly unheard of in equities. Since the inception of the VXN, it has hit a 30-day high as the Nasdaq 100 hit a multi-year high only twice before, on January 9, 2006, and October 30, 2007. Both led to pullbacks in the NDX over the next couple of months, for whatever that's worth in this market.
