Option Block 696: Trade War, Plus More SVXY Debate

Trading Block: Today we feature special guest host Lex Luthringshausen founder and CEO of Tradehawk, powered by Option Eyes. Headlines of the day: What trade war? SPX up over 1% intraday. VIX is back into the teens. Earnings Highlights: Tuesday - Target Wednesday - Dollar Tree, Costco Thursday - Kroger Friday - Revlon, Big Lots Odd Block: More JAN 2019 50 "Catastrophe" puts in Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA). Trade war sparks put roll in Materials Select Sector SPDR (XLB). Long-term call action in Ultra Petroleum Corp (UPL). Mail Block: Listeners have their say It's almost time for our annual Options BrokerMadness Tournament! Reply/DM to nominate your broker to compete in this year's BrokerBattle. 16 firms can enter....but in the end there can be only one. Get your nominations in now & prepare to battle. BrokerMadness starts 3/12. Comment from AlphamakerChris - A lot of people were robbed in their sleep, it's absolutely disgraceful. They should've given several weeks notice, not 1 day. People lost fortunes overnight for reasons not of their own doing. Comment from Scott Somer - NO fun if you were long anything accept deep ITM Options on SVXY or UVXY. Highlights unexpected danger of trading options on leveraged products.  TVIX TVIZ...Would have caused disorderly option markets if they did during the trading day. SVXY UVXY Shot across the bow if you are trading options on VolocityShare products as well....Wonder how many of them took people to "The Horse"? Question from Stifl - Great show. Agree with Mark about the OI change graph in LiveVol it's very useful. Only problem is that it only goes back a few months. Any tools out there that go back farther? Comment from DannyBzak - These funds are tracking an index. The index itself was down 96% on 2/5. This is a flaw in index design, not a fund problem. ETP's just can't decide to suddenly not track the index they are mandated to track. Someone needs a better mousetrap to track short vol in index form….Or a more realistic conclusion is that short vol is not a realistically scalable concept in index/ETP form. IMO short vol is something that is better served by active management, not a passive index...Which is the design flaw of thinking one should make an index designed to replicate a short position on anything. In reality someone who is smart enough to be short is smart enough to manage the risks of being short. These indexes have zero risk management built in. Around the Block/Economic Reports This Week Mar 6: Factory Orders Mar 7: International Trade, Productivity and Costs, Beige Book Mar 8: Jobless Claims Mar 9: Unemployment