This may turn out to be the week options traders have been waiting for. Since this economic crisis began to unfold in early September, the CBOE’s volatility index (the VIX) has soared to record levels. Only recently has the upward pressure begun to wane.

Today, the situation for the VIX is looking quite intriguing. The highly watched index found the momentum to drop below its 50-day moving average. The VIX is currently indicated at 58.93, just below the moving average’s level slightly above the 60 level.

This is only the second time since the end of August the index has traded below its 50-day average. The last time was in late November and the trend lasted for just a few trading sessions.…

Short-term speculators are selling Asian stocks in their droves. No more so than in my favourite market of them all: Vietnam.

Now that you have the standard deviation-volatility idea down, you can roll right on to Bollinger bands for a practical way to put what you know to work.

High priests have ways to keep a good gig to themselves … magic rites, forbidden knowledge, and secret terms. It doesn’t matter whether they are psychiatrists, witch doctors or investment analysts. In our field—investments—we’ve been considering the secrets of volatility.

The payoff for investing in a sure thing is lower than usual these days—a 90-day T-bill only pays 1.8%.

 In the energy market Tuesday, crude for June delivery kept on its steep up trajectory, notching yet another new record close at $129.45/barrel, up $2.02. June reformulated gasoline rose 6 cents, to $3.30/gallon.

In the energy market Thursday, crude for June delivery rose to a new closing high, ending at $127.05/barrel, up 76 cents. June reformulated gasoline rose 2 cents, to $3.24/gallon.

The canary is cautious. Longtime Growth Stock Wire readers know I watch the short-term action in Merrill Lynch shares to predict the coming strength or weakness in the overall market. MER is my proverbial canary in the coalmine.

So far, in our hunt for volatility we’ve gone where few true-blue investors dare tread. We’ve looked at volatility and exposed its threat to trailing stops. We’ve looked at how you can preview how much a stock is likely to go the wrong way before you should be worried by using ATR —average true range. Now we’re going to talk percentages.

In the currency market, the dollar continued to slide against the euro. Late Monday, the euro was trading at $1.5541 vs. $1.5473 on Friday.