AAPL and the VIX: Siamese Twins in a Market That Forgot Risk Exists. Hedge, Don’t Edge Yourself

NVDA’s print has traders chasing a Santa rally while the VIX quietly sits in the low 20s, pretending risk is optional. AAPL’s climb-and-collapse should be a warning: blow-offs don’t end in celebration. If protection was a gift at 14, it’s still mispriced now.

Tommo_UK

20 Nov 2025 — 16 min read

NVDA, the VIX and a “Santa Claus Rally.”

I expect with NVDA’s excellent results the brakes may come off the rally into year end, so you should keep a sub-20 entry point in mind for the VIX.

💡

CAVEAT: As I’ve stated since springtime, I do not subscribe to the idea of ever-lowering Fed rates. If the market does, the disconnect will create an airpocket.

My VIX entry point was was 14, but I don’t think it’s going that low again.

Here’s the backdrop to what happened, and why I kept on saying not buying the VIX was just plain stupid, given it was dirt cheap and offered incredible protection.

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PRELUDE: An Executive Summary (Extended Context in case you’re short on time or patience)

If this all feels familiar, it should.

We are almost exactly where we stood twelve months ago - November 2024 - when Trump’s victory sent markets into a euphoric, chest-beating blow-off that looked unstoppable right into Christmas… and then unwound brutally into one of the nastiest early-year pullbacks in a decade.

That cycle was powered by the same combustible mix we’re seeing now: policy whiplash, tariff brinkmanship, Treasury indigestion, and a level of complacency in volatility that only ever ends one way. Of course this year we have “Fed Euphoria” too, with the markets pricing in three to four more rate cuts.

I also wrote a few days ago about AAPL’s poor attempt at overcoming resistance even with #FakeChinaNews about “Roaring iPhone 17 sales” (which didn’t mention that the Chinese government were subsidising 25% of the cost of the iPhone in China,

nor that the iPhone Air has been a FLOP as I predicted:

Fast forward to today, 20th November 2025:

NVDA has delivered a stellar print, and the market is once again asking whether this is the start of the Santa-rally proper or just another bit of holiday froth before reality asserts itself.
AAPL has already shown us what happens when a rally runs out of narrative oxygen: a blow-off to $283 in after-hours, followed by a mechanical sell-down into the $260s. The broader indices now sit in the same posture they held last year: higher highs on narrowing breadth, junk resistance levels treated like springboards, and a volatility market pretending none of this carries risk.

And then there’s the VIX — the recurring character in this story.

Back in March, with volatility under 20 and the tape unnaturally calm, I made the call that the tariff and Treasury setup was primed for an air-pocket collapse. I exited all US assets and told readers, repeatedly, to buy protection while it was cheap. The VIX at the time was priced as if geopolitics, liquidity and policy shocks didn’t exist. Weeks later, in early April, it blew out to 60.13 — exactly the panic setup anyone paying attention should have anticipated.

When the dust settled and the index drifted toward 22 by June, I reiterated the call: watch for an entry near 18. By July and August, the market had convinced itself tariffs “didn’t matter,” and the VIX slipped into the 14s — the point at which I entered, publicly, and continued reinforcing the call ahead of Apple’s Q3 earnings on July 30.

Everything that followed is now history, and not a subtle one:

• The VIX doubled from the 14-handle to the low 20s.
• AAPL fell materially.
• And anyone who bought protection in the summer now sits on a 50 percent unleveraged gain (or roughly 1000 percent on standard VIX spot leverage).

Meanwhile, the investors who declared protection “unnecessary” replayed last year’s mistake — treating a blow-off as a trend rather than a warning.

All of which brings us back to today, November 20th 2025.

We have:

• NVDA reigniting risk appetite.
• Indices trying to construct a year-end rally narrative.
• Tariff anxiety creeping back into the headlines.
• Treasury auctions creating structural fragility.
• AAPL once again showing the danger of vertical moves with no volume foundation.
• And a VIX in the low 20s — not fear, not calm, just complacency with a price-tag.

In short:

We are back in a regime where protection is still cheap relative to the risks now re-materialising. The same dynamics that made the VIX at 14 a gift in July are still present today, just wearing a smarter suit and pretending the lessons of the past year no longer apply.

💡

If last November taught us anything, it’s that euphoric blow-offs don’t end because we run out of hope; they end because we run out of buyers. And every time volatility sleeps, especially after a rally like this, it’s an invitation, not reassurance.

That is why the VIX matters again, why ~20 levels remain a live discussion, and why anyone holding AAPL, tech, or anything tied to duration risk should at least be thinking about hedging before the market’s next mood swing: not after.

The Meat On The Bones

Back in March, when the tape still had that anaesthetised calm that only precedes a panic, I made the call I knew would irritate the permabulls.

I exited every US equity, every USD-denominated asset, and wrote, repeatedly, that the combination of Trump’s tariff brinksmanship and a Treasury market already wheezing under issuance would trigger an air-pocket collapse. I didn’t present it as clairvoyance. It was pattern recognition.

All the ingredients were there, and anyone looking at the macro plumbing instead of CNBC’s sentiment IV drip could see it. It didn’t make me many friends, especially after my criticism of Apple’s AI strategy and that it was in tatters, caused a revolt from certain cave dwellers, that I dare criticise the Holy Faithful smoking Hopium in the Doge’s Palace, because “AI was just lies and rubbish anyway [and we don’t know how t use it so nobody else can - subtext].”

Alongside that call, I told readers to buy protection while it was still cheap.

The VIX was under 20.
Complacency was high.
The set-up was insultingly obvious.
Volatility was being given away for free and the risks were being priced as if geopolitics, bond auctions and tariff policy no longer mattered.

They did. And in early April, the thing everyone insisted “wouldn’t happen again” happened again:

May 2025 - Trump, Tariffs, and TACOS: Predicted real time, and my post-collapse autopsy

The VIX blew out to 60.13 on April 7. Exactly the panic I’d warned about.

After the dust settled, and Trump stabilised sentiment - following a panicked phone call from Jamie Dimon who was giving a talk at a conference in New York that day, volatility drifted back toward 22 by June.

At that point I suggested keeping a close eye on the VIX for a proper entry around 18.

💡

A sane investor buys insurance when the house isn’t yet on fire, not while standing in the ashes. And, to make the point even clearer, you don’t put a condom on after you pull out - do you? Answers in the comments if you have to, please.

On May 8th 2025, over on PED’s excellent Apple 3.0, I wrote the following as an example VIX/AAPL trade (the market held up way better than expected but the VIX trade, after falling to 14 if you’d held out til June/July, would be paying off profitably now, with the positions rolled forward:

From Tommo_UK: Fear, Loathing and the VIX

published on Apple 3.0, May 8th 2025

Happy Days, Friendly Crowd, Vile Market.

Is it time to “Time the Market?” No. Timing the Fear? Absolutely.

“This landed — unbidden — on my desktop Thursday” [PED wrote]

“You can’t time the market!” they say - usually right after holding through a 50% drawdown while muttering platitudes about “long-term conviction.” - Fair enough. (Pffft).

But what if we didn’t time the market?
What if we just timed the fear?

If the S&P is a mood ring, the VIX is its panic button. Right now since Trump panic’d and hit the eject button a month ago just as the bond and stock markets were about to experience and existential breakdown, fear has evaporated and been replaced with euphoria.

That button’s been gathering dust. Despite April’s tremors, recent VIX levels suggest a market on Xanax, ignoring the risk that even post-deal, tariffs across multiple economies will become locked in—baking in inflation, suppressing consumer spending, and walloping the lower and middle classes who won’t see much relief from tax tweaks.

The VIX Is Low. Dangerously Low.

Let’s start with context. The VIX typically lives between:

15–20: Complacency central, everything’s fine
25–30: Uncertainty setting in
30–40: The dominoes start wobbling
40–60: Full-blown panic (think April, or March 2025)

Today? The VIX is around 23 [NOTE: end of May 2025].

That’s… bold:
- No signed trade deals.
- Tariff brinkmanship.
- A US administration negotiating like it’s playing Pictionary after four martinis.💡 Everyone knows you should never break the “Three Martini Rule.”
- The market’s holding its breath while sprinting toward a ledge.

Why This Trade Makes Sense

Buy fear when it’s cheap. Especially when:

The downside risk (VIX dropping a few points) is modest
The upside (VIX spiking to 55+) is explosive
And all it takes is one misstep or tweet to reignite chaos

You don’t have to root for disaster. Just price in the possibility.

The VIX Straddle Strategy
“Short-term calm meets medium-term chaos”

We’re not timing the market—we’re timing the mood. Here’s a structured approach [written as of May 8th]:

Outcome Scenarios:

If the VIX stays above 23 by August: puts expire worthless, you keep the premium.
If panic sets in anytime between now and November: your calls explode in value—$0.80 becomes $5–$8+.

Why Now?

Because the market is pricing in perfection:

No geopolitical slips.
No failed negotiations.
No earnings misses.
No black swans.
No post-deal horror at locking in inflation/stagflation
[HISTORIC NOTE: Inflation HAS risen to 3% since, the Fed looks it will NOT cut rates in December, and labour force stats do not look great. Tariff increases have yet to appear in YoY comparables]

Really?

If you’re long AAPL, tech, or anything with duration risk—and feeling the slightest chill about what happens between now and Halloween—this straddle (by yours truly, a total options amateur trying to keep it simple) lets you hedge creatively, and perhaps even profit handsomely from short-term chaos.

For the Record

This isn’t fearmongering. It’s preparation. The world isn’t ending. But policy stupidity, trade spats, and geopolitical theatre have a nasty habit of clustering. And when they do, the VIX doesn’t meander—it detonates.

What If It Goes Wrong?

Let’s model the downside risk:
Suppose the VIX doesn’t spike. Suppose instead, by August, it has drifted down to 20 [NOTE: IT HIT 14, WHICH IS WHEN I ENTERED], A market that’s decided everything really is fine, all the deals are inked, and nobody panics.

So yes, you can lose. But the risk is:

Capped: Your max loss is limited and known in advance.
Statistically unlikely: The VIX hasn’t stayed sub-20 for long stretches when macro risks are elevated
[HISTORIC NOTE: AFTER TOUCHING 14 in AUGUST, THE VIX IS BACK TO 22 as of November 19th 2025]

💡

Note: You can adjust the straddle to suit your risk profile to minimise the unlikely event of the VIX sinking to historic lows in the middle of a trade war if you like, if you're risk averse.

OR take a longer term time horizon, but in my opinion the chances of there not being a panic sometime between now and November even if short lived, seems small, considering the actions of the administration and the markets to-date.

In Short:
You’re risking $3 to make $10 (or $200 on 20:1 leverage) or more. That’s not timing the market: it’s giving fear a chance to overreact (as it often does) when complacency has already set in prematurely.

And if it doesn’t?

You took your shot with a fully capped downside so the risk is quantifiable and you’ll have to pony up for the loss in August. However, you still have your November VIX 25 call, which 3 more months after August to either get you back to break even, or turn in a healthy profit.

Chances of the VIX staying under 23 where it is now, for 3 months? Unlikely. Once spike into autumn’s trading if things are bad, that VIX 50 call could rocket. Or you could roll it forward.

💡

NOTE: It stayed just under 23 … at 22 today, but if you’d rolled your trade forward, you’d be just fine, and insured. It’s called insurance, for a reason. It costs you, until there’s a disaster, and then whether you believe in God or not, your genuflect and praise the Lord you didn’t just listen to Dan Ives and not take out protection at the same time.

Still with me? Let’s step back…

As a mild-mannered Englishman with a warm cup of Earl Grey and utterly inoffensive with no tendencies to use hyperbole or crude dry wit to make my point, sat in a front-row seat to the “Hollywood Tariff Horror Story,” I can’t help but observe the unfolding US–UK–India triangle with amusement and a faint sense of déjà vu.

Let’s be honest: Trump’s trade strategy isn’t Versailles. It’s Vegas. Slam down tariffs, hope others blink, then call the retreat a victory. The result? Surging input costs. Inflationary pressure. Recession for the working class wrapped in ribbon for Wall Street.

And so, with no desire to short Apple (that would be vulgar), I do see merit in a more refined wager: timing the panic.

The VIX, our old friend, is asleep. It could fall deeper asleep in the next few days awaiting Trump’s heralded upcoming announcement. But the world isn’t. And when sentiment snaps, the upside on fear could be delicious, like a nicely crispy Granny Smith apple perfectly chilled

Final Thought

The best trades are sometimes the ones that make you grin while others panic. This might be one of them.

Care to join a rebellious Englishman in quietly betting on a little American chaos—in the nicest possible way?

Tea, and a spread, anyone? And as options aren’t my normal thing but the VIX is screaming like an abandoned baby for attention, if anyone has better mothering skills than me and can suggest or rubbish this idea, and add to it, I’m all ears. I said I would not invest in US assets again, while Trump was in power.

But this, buying cheap Trumpian Fear and profiting from it, is almost a case of Fatal Attraction.

/end of historic article

So… What actually happened in August?

But in July and August, the market did its usual trick of convincing itself that tariffs, bond auctions and macro risk were “overblown,” and the VIX fell into the 14s. That’s when I finally entered my VIX trade, which with the VIX up to 22 is 50% up, or 1000% up on 20:1 leverage).

I reiterated the call again in newsletters, in intraday notes, and explicitly in the run-up to Apple’s Q3 earnings. Nobody could say they weren’t told.

Here’s a few examples from the archive:

From “As I’ve been saying since July…”

Date: July 2025

Pull-quote: “Investors should have been buying the VIX at its almost historic low of 14 for protection against these events.”

From “AAPL: Tries to Touch Its ATH… Vapour Chamber Smokium”

Date: early October 2025

Pull-quote: “Love your investments, but hedge against a collapse by using the VIX and make sure you’re using cheap protection.”

From “Positioning Ideas (Defined Risk Only)”

Date: October 2025

Pull-quote: “Want protection against a momentum air pocket? Consider buying VIX protection.”

From “AAPL: A Pullback to $225 On The Cards?” (17 Nov 2025)

Date: 17 November 2025

Pull-quote: “A bet on $225 might not be such a bad bet, especially if you followed my intuition to buy the VIX earlier in the year when it was at 14.”

💡

Every one of these was written in real time, not hindsight. The point wasn’t to be clever. It was simply recognising that a VIX under 20, amid this macro backdrop, was a gift.

And now, even with the VIX at “only” 22, the maths still speaks for itself.

If you’d acted on the call, buying at 14, you’d be sitting on a 50 percent gain unleveraged. With the standard 20:1 leverage used in VIX derivatives, that’s roughly a 1000 percent return.

And that’s without trying to time anything. Just buying protection when it was cheap, and letting the market’s own excesses supply the payoff. Perfect for traders, investors, and Dividend Queens alike.

And that’s the entire lesson. The market keeps offering warning shots. Most investors keep assuming the smoke is atmospheric rather than structural. And every time volatility sleeps, it’s an invitation, not a lullaby.

Landed Gentry Dividend Queen to ”New Grasshopper AAPL Investor”

“Ahhh my dear friend, just buy AAPL and hold it forever.

My wife and I use the profits from our 25-year old holdings of AAPL, which is up 11,000% to buy $4500 AVP headsets to spend more quality time together, Selling AAPL and investing in other stocks? Oh that’s for amateurs and traders. You can’t time the market, and what’s a 53% drawdown in 6 months, when you are going to hold the stock until you die anyway? Portfolio rebalancing is for nincompoops.” - anon Dividend Queen.

**People with AVPs tend to take solace watching dinosaur spatial videos, not their portfolios. Who can blame them?: They can afford not to care.**

But here’s the math:

Within my March (when I exited the US markets and spoke of using the VIX for protection) to 19 November window:

VIX high: 60.13 (7 April, tariff panic).
Low: 14s in late July / mid-August (“tariffs don’t matter” euphoria).
Spot VIX right now: 21–21.1 today.
52-week range: 12.70–60.13.

So my call to buy the VIX for protection, if it had been followed, would have yielded roughly a 330% (unleveraged) return.

Leveraged at 20:1 on that real blowout to about 60 on the Trump scare, here’s the maths on the main swing from that trade:

Actual VIX return (spot move)
From 14 → 60 = x3.28, ie a +328.57% gain, even while AAPL lost 25%.
Apply 20:1 leverage on trading VIX derivatives
You multiply the underlying return by the leverage factor (20:1):

328.57 × 20 = a 6571.4% almost overnight gain.

So the leveraged return would be ≈ +6,571%, meaning:

$1k → about $67,700.

FINAL CALL:

A VIX trade when I recommended it could have delivered a gain roughly equal to over half of AAPL’s entire 11,000% 25-year rally, in about 25 days.

💡

Anyone who still isn’t heeding my call, made throughout the pre- and post-correction period when VIX contracted to 14 and has now settled at around 22, was just, sorry to say it, stupid.

People use a condom to have sex.

They use insurance to protect their house before it burns down.

Why the hell wouldn’t you buy the VIX when it’s almost being given away for free, given from 14 it’s already risen 50% (or 1000% on 20:1 leverage) in just three months since its August low?

💡 Ask yourself: What are the odds of there not being another tantrum of some kind, in the next 6-12 months?

An options strategy (outside of the US you can trade the spot VIX using CFD and spread-bet derivatives - try opening an overseas account. Otherwise you’re stuck, in the US, using the CBOE’s mediocre and rather self-serving options derivatives which need managing and rolling forward with more attention) may sit there slowly decaying if you’re using US options to trade it as you roll it over, and depending how far out you’re buying calls or selling puts to buy calls, or whatever your chosen strategy is.

But when it spikes, it’s usually in just hours or days.

That blow-off, well, you only need it to happen once a year and you don’t need to be an AAPL Dividend Queen to work out what your ROI will be.

Fred, if you’re reading this, my warm regards.

💡

To everyone else, buy the damn VIX on its next dip for protection. If you don’t need it, and it expires worthless, it probably means your AAPL has broken through a glass ceiling. And if it does spike, you can buy all the new Apple gadgets you like from your VIX trade, while the twirls goes to hell. And AAPL on the cheap too. Win/Win.

Can using protection possibly feel any better??

— Tommo_UK, London. Thursday pre-market, 20th November 2025.

Boilerplate disclaimer: Any trades taken on the basis of this update are your own lookout: consult your emotional support animal or GPT before diving in.