Guest Columnist at The Striking Price for Barron’s

The last few times I have been asked to be a guest columnist for The Striking Price on behalf of Steven Sears at Barron’s, there has been a spike in volatility just about the time I go to commit my thoughts to paper keyboard + monitor. I had begun to think that the folks at Barron’s were somehow omniscient and knew when to put in a call to the bullpen for “that volatility guy.”

So when the call came again, I immediately had a Pavlovian urge to buy up some VIX calls, but alas the markets have been calm. Everyone seems to be wondering where the pullback is. If today’s column is not the catalyst, I’m not sure what it will take.

Speaking of which, I have elected to focus on volatility as an asset class for today’s guest column, which bears the title, Ways to Turn Volatility into an Asset Class. Part of my thesis is that 2011 is the year that volatility goes mainstream, largely due to the rise of volatility-based exchange-traded products, which are in the process of bringing volatility trading to the masses. I also repeat an earlier assertion that before the year is over, XVIX and XIV will gain significant traction as buy and hold volatility vehicles. For all the details, click through to read the original.

…and if we do see a major pullback soon, I expect the timetable to accelerate for investors to begin to embrace the stable of 15 volatility-based ETPs.

Related posts:

• The Year in VIX and Volatility (2010)
• VIX and More and the 2011 Bespoke Roundtable
• Volatility as an Asset Class I
• VelocityShares Jumping in to the VIX ETP Space with Leveraged and Inverse Products
• Two More VIX ETNs Make It a Baker’s Dozen

A full list of my Barron’s contributions:

• Ways to Turn Volatility into an Asset Class (January 12, 2011)
• There’s Opportunity in Uncertainty (November 18, 2010)
• Will Market Volatility Return to Crisis Levels (September 15, 2010)
• The Perils of Predicting Volatility (May 20, 2010)
• Take a Longer View on Volatility (July 2, 2009)

Disclosure(s): long XIV and XVIX at time of writing