Haven't seen it mentioned, but a Barron's article from yesterday is about an investor betting on the end of the world soon. It made me think of the stock market shenanigans prior to 9/11. 🤔

Someone Is Betting That the Market Will Collapse

Amid the gloom, one trade looms so unusually pessimistic that it is hard to process because the world would likely need to end, or come close to it, for it to prove profitable. The trade is predicated on the Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, hitting 150 by March, a level that has never before been realized. The so-called fear gauge was recently around 34.

In recent sessions, an investor bought 50,000 VIX March $150 call options, paying about 19 cents per contract. The trade is so large, and so unusual, that it was almost certainly made by a wealthy investor worried about a massive stock market decline, perhaps triggered by Armageddon, or something approaching it. Since then, other investors have bought similarly situated upside VIX calls, including more than 5,500 January $120 calls.

“Another possible extreme tail event would be nuclear war,” McMillan wrote in a note to clients. “I can’t think of much of anything else. In the case of nuclear war, though, the markets might not even be open, and this trader might not even be able to cash in on his ‘bet’ if he survived.”