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1/ Got been asked if Korean Autocallables is in top-5 issues when discussing vol, what would the other four be.
First and foremost, I would say you have to have your investing environment right, so here goes, by no particular order:
First and foremost, I would say you have to have your investing environment right, so here goes, by no particular order:
2/ Correlations between index constituents. $ICJ $JCJ. To make the point: First day in history when something like all but two shares in $SPX closed down, was Feb 5, 2018. Another two such days followed in December of same year.
3/ Volatility remains depressed by central bank policies. This is the elephant in the room. Watch $Fed Total Assets like a hawk. 
4/ Volatility is mean-reverting. Avoid buying breakouts, except when taking a stop loss. Hold strategic cash reserves to sell vol at spikes. You are printing substantial negative MtM at those times so this takes gigantic discipline not to miss on your big P/L recovery opportunity
5/ Current favorite trades include shorting $SPX $gamma to buy $EURUSD gamma; buy long-term commodity vol, $delta neutral, to earn the carry; and same for US interest rates as long-term vol rolls up positively.
6/ Top idea: Buy very long term EuroStoxx $FESX zero-cost collars. High dividends + low interest rates make for surprisingly cheap further upside play; you hold ~60%-65% delta, so volatile MtM, but you lose money only if European stock lower by >35% in 5yrs.
7/ This by no way means that if you follow correlations, Korean AC's and Fed policy you are surely going to make tons of money trading $VIX. It rather means that if you **do not** follow these you are surely going to lose tons of money trading the VIX.
