Blogs
What Might a Middle-Power Alliance Mean for Dividends?
October 30, 2026On January 20, 2026, Mark Carney, prime minister of Canada, used his Davos Congress speech in Switzerland to call for an alliance of middle-power countries, reflecting a growing concern that dependence on the world’s largest powers could become an economic ...
Read moreMidterm Elections and Market Volatility: What History Shows
October 28, 2026Midterm elections are next Tuesday, and the obvious question for investors is how the results may affect markets. Do midterm elections affect returns and implied volatility? Has the effect changed over time? Is the effect greater if both houses change ...
Read moreAgricultural Commodities Under the Radar
October 19, 2026Although energy has understandably attracted the most attention this year, wheat, soybeans, and sugar have posted sizeable year-to-date gains and impressive risk-adjusted returns with much less fanfare. Copper offers a useful contrast: despite frequent coverage highlighting its outsized returns, its ...
Read moreHow Much of 0-DTE Is Really Retail? Evidence from SPX and SPY Options
September 28, 2026Garrett DeSimone, PhD Yvon Lu Zero-day-to-expiration (0-DTE) options have exploded onto the SPX market, growing more than fivefold since 2022 and now accounting for over half of all SPX volume. Retail traders have driven much of this surge, but measuring ...
Read moreThe Real Oil Shock
September 16, 2026Seven months into the war with Iran and its regional proxies, energy markets remain at center stage. Like all wars involving commodities, effects on the energy markets have been inconsistent and have confounded the most astute analysts. [playlist tracklist="false" images="false" ...
Read more0DTE Covered Calls Aren’t Special—Timing Them Is
September 4, 2026Selling zero-days-to-expiration (0DTE) options has become a popular trading strategy with the potential to collect high premiums daily. A wave of daily and weekly income products has grown up around a simple pitch: theta decays fastest in an option's final ...
Read moreVIX Dynamics
August 24, 2026Steep bull markets have always been accompanied by predictions of spectacular reversals. Each new high brings a fresh batch of pundits eager to point out that the market is overbought, structurally weak, or flashing frantic sell signals. Contrarian arguments are popular in that they appeal to the ...
Read moreThe Coming Wave of Mega IPOs: What Dividend Investors Should Watch
July 23, 2026The public markets may soon encounter one of the largest consecutive waves of initial public offerings in history. Companies such as SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Databricks have all achieved extraordinary valuations privately, with several worth billions of dollars. SpaceX began strong with its IPO this June, raising ...
Read moreCrude Oil: Old News?
July 20, 2026Oil is back in the news, and the situation seems very similar to that of last March: escalating hostilities, constraints in the Straits of Hormuz, and renewed prospects of a rapidly tightening supply situation. Crude oil has reacted accordingly and ...
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