Volatility & Overlay – Volatility Risk Premium

Philosophy

Equity markets’ evolution is influenced by investors’ behavioural biases. Fear of loss is a representative example: investors are much more sensitive to the losses they might be subject to when investing in financial markets than to the gains they might benefit from. To prevent these losses, investors tend to seek protection against strong market movements and the related volatility by buying options. The sellers of these options charge a risk premium. The Volatility Risk Premium strategy precisely seeks to benefit from this risk premium and the fear of loss by structurally selling volatility.

The strategy’s objective is to seek to capture the volatility risk premium in order to provide an alternative long-term return source to traditional asset classes.

Key Points

  • idea

    An alternative source of returns

    Aim to generate long term returns by capturing the volatility risk premium

  • life-cycle

    Liquid investments

    Daily liquidity through a strategy using only in liquid and listed instruments

Investment Strategy

The Volatility Risk Premium strategy consists in an active strategy of selling liquid and listed derivatives (options and index derivatives), thus seeking to avoid the pitfalls of passive strategies.

Objective

To generate a long-term return by capturing the volatility risk premium.

Investment Universe

Volatility of global equity markets (S&P 500, Euro Stoxx 50, Footsie 100, Nikkei and HangSeng indices) through liquid and listed instruments (index derivatives).

Our Experts

  • Simon Aninat

    Simon Aninat

    Portfolio Manager

  • Victor Moussally

    Victor Moussally

    Portfolio Manager

  • Stéphanie Noël

    Stéphanie Noël

    Portfolio Manager

  • Sébastien Guérin

    Sébastien Guérin

    Portfolio Manager