Daily Options Report

Can't hammer home the point enough that as bad as VIX looks, it's STILL above the historical volatility of SPX.

But there's about a billion other spots where we can look at volatility. Like GLD here. As Ryan Renicker of Ticonderoga Securities notes, implied volatility here is actually in line with realized volatility.

He uses 20 day HV, but I'm using 10 day HV here as is my preference for graphing. And as you can see, it's pretty much in line with 30 Day IV from the lower graph.

Now of course the caveats. You have to assume that the recent HV range is now the norm, because until December the range was in the mid teens. The options don't believe it yet, but hey, that's a market. We've seen all things VIX over-estimate future market volatility forever now.

All in all, options do look like a better shot on the long side here than in anything SPX or SPY related.