Guess who was on the wrong side of the VIX?

Here is the Wall Street Journal:

”More recently, some of these investors also made big, unpublicized wagers seeking to benefit from what had been an unusually long period of low volatility, according to pension-fund consultants and others who deal with these institutions. The strategies, often involving the writing of complicated options contracts, were for years a source of easy money. Markets hadn’t been so calm since the 1950s.

Among those making such bets were Harvard University’s endowment, the Employees’ Retirement System of the State of Hawaii and the Illinois State Universities Retirement System.”

The option floor traders had colorful ways of describing these short vol strategies… One that can go in print is, “It’s like picking up dimes in front of a steamroller”…