So many trading models have failed catastrophically over the past months that the survivors can wonder if anything other than randomly distributed luck can be relied on. Some of the worst damage has been done by, and to, the most intelligent people, who constructed the most elaborate simulations of real world dynamics. They anticipated almost everything that could happen, which, of course justified taking on lots of leverage. After all, if you know and quantify all the possible outcomes, you don’t need much capital to cushion any miscalculations. Oh well.

However, there is a subtribe of quants who are still here. Those traders of equity volatility who managed to navigate their way through the ban on financial stock short selling have finally had their day. Actually, now, many days.