Shortly after the collapse of the ‘short-vol’ trade in February, VIX speculators were ripped into an unprecedented long position (i.e. betting on higher vol) and while VIX has fallen from its peak chaos levels, speculators have added to their ‘rising risk’ bets.

It appears ‘Buy the dip’ has reached the volatility markets…

As Bloomberg notes, hedge funds have increased their wagers for turbulence in the equity market for a fourth straight week, taking the number of net-long positions on Cboe Volatility Index futures to a fresh record.

After being short the contracts for almost two years, large speculators reversed their bets in February amid a surge in the VIX, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission show.

The VIX term structure has ‘normalized’ in the last week, as stocks bounced and spot VIX dropped back below 17.5…