Option Block 680: 2017 Year-End Palooza - All Smoke, No Fire

Trading Block: Review of the last trading day of the year. VIX barely holding on to double digits. Big meh into the end of the year. Silver is on a tear. The highs and lows of Bitcoin. Cboe announces six Bitcoin ETFs. Uncle Mike creates a new product...Fitcoin. 2017 Year-in Review: The good, the bad, and the unexplicable. Final Options Question of the Week for 2017: What is your enduring market memory/event/trend/etc of 2017? Have a suggestion of your own? We encourage you to choose "Other" and send in your thoughts. Death of Volatility/VIX Rise of Bitcoin The Unstoppable Bull Other: Reply/DM w/ ideas Comment from OptionsAlliance: The surprise resurgence of #options volume in 2017. Comment from OliveWanaBroker: The oats bull market. Very important. Uncle Mike's silver collar was not, in fact, the second coming of AAPL. All smoke, no fire Crypto fever Odd Block: Crazy paper from the year TSLA options tracker: The explosion of interest in TSLA catastrophe puts. OI exploded in 2017. Interest also expanded to Jan 2020 50 puts. The 250,000 contract VIX three-way, rolled thrice Extended Stay America - giving up the ghost The way-out-of-the-money gold trade with a further out-of-the-money kicker. Strategy Block: Uncle Mike waxes poetic about his trading strategy from 2017 Around the Block: Will the outlier trends continue? Andrew brings us down with debt talk. What would it take for volatility to return to normal?