Pressure on the Eurozone was unexpectedly increased Friday when J?rgen Stark announced his resignation from the ECB executive board exposing serious divisions between the members over recent bond purchases of Italian and Spanish debt.

I took note yesterday that the CBOE Volatility index, the VIX, is trading at a higher level than the CBOE Nada 100 Volatility index: the VXN.

In GLD, we saw a 'panic vol spike' intraday as traders rushed to buy premium in the product.

I'm sure it is not news to any of you that NVDA was up over 1.00 after the bell on blow out earnings

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

Since the summer holiday season has ended we now look forward to the schedule of events that is surely to keep volatility well supported for the next few weeks.

In Roman mythology the god of beginnings and endings, Janus, is typically portrayed having two heads, each facing in opposite directions. His countenances are displayed in this manner so that he can observe the past as well as the future.

For a second there, I thought we might do it, as the market rallied quite hard yesterday.

The more I look at the structure of IV, the more I am convinced we are heading lower from here

When the VIX broke through 42% Friday morning, prior to Ben Bernanke's uneventful speech, I heard several of my students discuss how it had hit a 'triple top', as if high option volatility has any form of technical analysis that can be applied.

There are heavy expectations ahead of Ben Bernanke's speech from Jackson Hole. We can see this in the way option implied volatility has risen over the last few days. But just what type of move is the market expecting?

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