Hedge Funds
Professional speculators are making record bets in volatility markets that U.S. stocks will keep rallying. Hedge funds and other big traders tracked by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have pushed net short positions on CBOE Volatility Index futures to 115,000 contracts, the most since 2013, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Shorting volatility is effectively a bet equity prices will rise since the VIX and stocks move in opposite directions 80 percent of the time.