EpsteinProject.org

House Oversight — Estate records

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_014972

Global Equity Volatility Insights

Pages
30
Text
Searchable

Text as released

Machine-read from the scan. Names, dates and numbers can be misread — check anything you rely on against the original page.

Global Equity Volatility Insights
Want a cheap call on EU equity? Monetise
correlation through EU bank dispersion
we estimate 68% of the
20 June 2017
Unauthorized redistribution of this report is prohibited. This report is intended for amanda.ens@baml.com
US
Extract alpha from summer SPX range as policy and positioning “collar” equities
With the Federal Reserve last week appearing more emboldened to normalize monetary
policy, risk asset bears have come out in force. While we agree that a changing Fed
reaction function is likely not supportive of substantial equity upside, we think the
“Yellen put” still exists, albeit with a lower strike. Hence, we see monetary policy as
providing a near-term “collar” (long put/short call) on a US equity market already prone
to getting trapped in record-tight trading ranges. Further impetus for a summer rangetrade
should come from (i) fiscal policy, as gridlock caps equity upside but policy hope
floors the downside, and (ii) positioning, where the risk of continued “fragility events”
(potentially exacerbated by stretched quant fund/short vol positioning) meets cashed-up
investors still accustomed to buying dips. As a risk-limited range trade, we like buying
in-the-money down and out puts on the S&P. For example, an SPX Sep 2475 put that
knocks out at 2300 (6% OTM) indicatively costs 70bps (spot ref 2451), a 60% discount
to the 2475 / 2300 put spread.
Europe
Long EU banks dispersion: Buy Dec17 call on a basket, sell worst-of call
We recommend positioning for greater dispersion in EU bank sector returns via buying a
Dec17 105% call on an equally-weighted basket of Santander, BNP, ING, Intesa and
Deutsche Bank, part-financed by selling a worst-of call on the same basket for 1.8%
(net) indic., as: 1) improving macro/earnings, sensitivity to rates and regulatory
headwinds are likely to lead to greater differentiation within banks, 2) the entry point is
attractive given historically low implied vol (13 th 8y+ percentile) and high implied

[…]

Open in the archive