Amateur Investors Get Burned by Wall Street’s Hottest Trade
- Exchange-traded products lure wannabes into volatility bets
- No matter how many times they’re told of the risks, they wager
This article is for subscribers only.
Jamie Evans jokes that he might have a gambling problem.
When stocks slid Monday with little discernible cause, the 37-year-old used a product mirroring the VIX volatility index to bet markets would return to their recent calm. They didn’t. Instead, they went into freefall and Evans faces the loss of his entire $1,500 wager. Credit Suisse Group AG, the issuer of his exchange-traded note, is shutting down the fund after it dropped more than 90 percent.