As I look at the VIX trading 16% yesterday, and the market still near 2008 highs, it got me thinking. What is with all the gloom and doom?

Since we are going to cover a bit more territory than usual in this Digest, we will be omitting some of the option detail we normally include along with the trade suggestions.

Well there was another humdinger of a market yesterday.

For a moment in time this week the VXX was headed into the basement of volatility history

Volatility Review: Slaughter of the VIX April future, with May poised for the same. Credit Suisse released more creation units and TVIX crushed long positions – going from 13 to 6.5 in a week. Euro vol review — March 1- and 3-month contracts expired last week. NASDAQ vol update.Volatility Viewpoint: Mark, Bob, and Mark have the great pleasure to discuss volatility with the Godfather: Anthony Neuberger, Professor of Finance at Warwick Business School. The gang discusses his seminal paper, "The Log Contract and Other Power Contracts." They also discuss tail risk and skew risk. Mark asks Prof. Neuberger if the market is correctly pricing in tail risk.Crystal Ball: Sebastian sees VIX staying between 14 and 16, with a lot of erosion in VXX. Watch out for contango. Euro vol is a coin flip right now. NASDAQ vol might be too expensive right now because of Apple.

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

While last week's minor correction in the S&P 500 Index seemed to relieve some of the apparent overbought pressure that had been building in the VIX futures premium we are not convinced it was enough.

Product knowledge is one of the first rules about trading derivatives. As a trader I spent a lot of time trading names that I grew to be very familiar with.

Every talking head on the planet is talking about how .low'the VIX is. The truth is, the VIX is not low at all.

The SPX juice is in a "ball of confusion" right now as premiums are going in different directions all at once.

When it comes down to it, derivative financial products are just, well, derivative financial products. There is nothing physical about them.

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