Volatility Views 687: Semi Shocks and Volatility Haircuts

In this episode of Volatility Views, host Mark Longo is joined by "Muscle" Rhoads (Dr. Russell Rhoads), Mark Sebastian from Option Pit, and the long-awaited return of the Thompson Twins (Matt and Mike Thompson of Thompson Capital). Together, the crew unpacks a wild week of violent market rotations, earnings season anxieties, and the localized panic ripping through semiconductor and AI stocks.

The team takes a deep dive into the vol surface to analyze why the equal-weighted VIX EQ is surging past 50 while index-level vol remains relatively contained. Are we looking at a localized tech overreaction, or the brink of a massive correlation-one sell-off? Plus, they break down a bizarre, head-scratching 100-strike VIX put trade, structural "mullet" vs. "tulum" strategies, and the latest reverse splits shaking up the vol ETP space (SVIX, UVXY, and UVIX).

What's inside this episode:

• The Volatility Review: Deconstructing the Taiwan Semi fallout, Nvidia's wild swings, and how money is rotating between tech hyperscalers and broader indices.

• The New VIX Order: Why geopolitical and event-driven vol spikes are mean-reverting faster than ever in the modern market ecosystem.

• Term Structure & Haircuts: Moving long and short on the curve—the team explains why they are leaning into the traditional "mullet" style.

• VIX Options Flow: Breaking down the massive volume behind the August 26 calls, the shift toward the 17 puts, and another round of mocking high-risk, low-reward institutional trades.

• ETP & Levered Vol Update: Dealing with the liquidity drain post-reverse splits in UVXY and UVIX, and why tracking seasonality matters right now.

• The Crystal Ball: The guys put their reputations on the line with their weekly VIX and Volley predictions for next week.