VIX Rigging Buzz Was Fueled by a Texas Grad Student From Iran
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Amin Shams, a 34-year-old Ph.D. student at the University of Texas, says things have been interesting lately. That’s an understatement, as research he published last year fuels a renewed debate over whether a famous financial index is rigged.
He co-wrote a paper published in May with John Griffin, a finance professor at the school, arguing that the VIX might be manipulated. It got some notoriety back then, but nothing like the deluge of the past few days. The change is because of what’s happened this month. The volatility benchmark saw a record surge on Feb. 5, investors lost billions of dollars when some VIX funds collapsed and then on Monday a whistle-blower’s separate allegation of rigging emerged in a Bloomberg News article.