“It’s about rotation between sectors at the moment,” said Stephen Crewe, whose Fulcrum Equity Dispersion Fund is up 10% this year. The London-based manager is positioning for continued volatility among companies in the technology and energy sectors. “No one really knows where the US economy is going to end up,” he said.
The strategy, which has cooled of late after notching outsize gains earlier in the year, is deployed mostly by volatility hedge funds and banks packaging it into systematic strategies. Versions of the trade may buy options on a basket of stocks while others, like those managed by Assenagon and Fulcrum, are more selective. Some are neutral to volatility, whereas others are buying more options than they sell.
With expected swings embedded in index-level option prices relatively contained, it’s been harder for typical derivatives hedges to make money, with the payoff hinging more on getting the strike price or market timing right. For instance, an S&P 500-tracking portfolio that’s added calls on the VIX -- which is supposed to buffer portfolios against a sudden outbreak in price swings -- has suffered a four-percentage-point drag on performance, a Cboe index shows.
Yet going forward, the big challenge for dispersion traders is hiding in plain sight: Supersized Fed rate hikes risk causing a sudden collapse in economic growth that may in turn spur a big jump in index volatility.
Still for now, institutions appear to have little appetite for adding market hedges, according to Michael Purves, founder of Tallbacken Capital Advisors. He recommends betting on the VIX to fall till the end of the year.
“Perhaps yields can creep higher, but not in a shocking way the way they did when they pierced 4% in September,” he wrote in a note. “Markets appear to have processed the notion that there is little doubt that a Fed pivot is not close at hand.”
--With assistance from Sam Potter.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.