Featured Articles
• A Question of Capital Efficiency 
• Interview with Phil Flynn
• Risk or Uncertainty: Explaining the Variance Premium
• Comparative Implied and Realized Index Volatility
• Trading Expiration

Mark Sebastian authors this month’s feature article in which he delves into some of the benefits of index options as a more efficient use of capital than trading the corresponding ETFs or ETNs directly.

Phil Flynn is the subject of this month’s feature interview. Mark does the honors again and their wide-ranging discussion spans the evolution of the commodities markets and the changes brought about by commodities ETPs to futures strategies, trading frequencies, the financial media and other subjects.

Explores the realized and implied volatility of the five major market equity volatility indices (VIX, VXN, VXO, RVX, VXD) and their corresponding underlying equity indices (SPX, NDX, OEX, RUT, DJIA) in terms of correlation, beta and volatility risk premium from 2004–2012.

Describes how weekly options have changed the nature of expiration trading and have given the retail investor more viable trading strategies.