The CBOE Volatility Index - VIX (PDF / 1.71MB)
VIX provides a snapshot of expected stock market volatility over the next 30 calendar days and is calculated real-time from index option premiums.

Collar Trade (PDF)
A collar trade consists of selling one out-of the-money (OTM) call and buying one at-the-money (ATM) put for each 100 shares of stock owned. The expiration month is the first one available that is at least one year away. As a result, the position consists of a covered call (long stock and short OTM call) to collect income and a long put for protection.

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May 5, 2008
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Collaring the Cube: Protection Options for a NASDAQ 100 ETF Portfolio (PDF) 
A study by Szado and Kazemi of the University of Massachusetts evaluated nine years of data on the Powershares QQQ exchange traded fund and found that a protective collar strategy using a six month put purchase and consecutive one month call writes provided far superior returns compared with buying and holding the NASDAQ-100 Index® ETF with about one-third of the index volatility. Over the 108 month study period, this collar strategy returned more than 150% cumulatively, while the cube portfolio lost over 12%.

You can also view the six page summary (PDF) of the paper which also provides a collar tutorial on the back pages.

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