Trade selection using volatility as the primary criteria. Different trades for different volatility opportunities.

A mixed bag is an unexpected or unorganized assortment of things, people or ideas. We use it to symbolize this week's collection miscellaneous trading ideas.

Trade selection using volatility as the primary criteria. Different trades for different volatility opportunities.

Considering the date, perhaps we should have titled this issue with something related to Valentine's Day but since we are more interested in trading opportunities we think silver is a better choice.

Trade selection using volatility as the primary criteria. Different trades for different volatility opportunities.

Since the books are now closed for January it is time to update the January Barometer, sometimes also called the January Effect.

Trade selection using volatility as the primary criteria. Different trades for different volatility opportunities.

Images of rioting in the streets of Egypt renews contrarian thoughts made famous by Baron Rothschild, the 18th century British nobleman and member of the Rothschild banking family, who is credited with saying, "The time to buy is when there's blood in the streets."

Trade selection using volatility as the primary criteria. Different trades for different volatility opportunities.

Last week's look at the relationship between the Historical Volatility and Implied Volatility of the S&P 500 Index (SPX) led us to conclude the unusually low Historical Volatility would not likely last much longer.

Trade selection using volatility as the primary criteria. Different trades for different volatility opportunities.

Here near the start of the New Year while the S&P 500 Index, along with several other major US equity indexes are rising while the volatility measures are declining, we thought his would be a good time to update the information about our source of VIX options data.