# Daily Vol Routine — 5 min/day, single screen **Created:** 2026-07-04 (Session 15, Block 010 carry-forward) **Source:** User request for daily routing that minimizes time while maximizing internalization **Status:** Active practice **Purpose:** A daily routine that turns the Block 010 vol-surface material into lived experience. Five minutes, one screen, five numbers, one exercise, one decision. Same time, same place, same sequence every day. **Anchoring principle:** The vol surface is the lens; the price is the input. We're learning to read the surface, not predict the price. **Key to abbreviations used in this document:** | Abbrev | Full name | Notes | |---|---|---| | **ZN** | 10-Year U.S. Treasury Note futures (CME/CBOT) | Primary instrument for the routine | | **ZB** | 30-Year U.S. Treasury Bond futures (CME/CBOT) | Long-end reference | | **ZF** | 5-Year U.S. Treasury Note futures (CME/CBOT) | Belly reference | | **ATM** | At-The-Money | Strike equal to current forward | | **IV** | Implied Volatility | Market-priced vol extracted via Black / Bachelier | | **RR** | Risk Reversal | 25-delta call IV minus 25-delta put IV; measures skew | | **25Δ** | 25 Delta | Option moneyness in delta space; 25-delta OTM call/put | | **CVOL** | CME Group Volatility Index | 30-day implied vol index across the full option chain | | **FOMC** | Federal Open Market Committee | U.S. rate-setting body; meets 8x/year | | **CPI** | Consumer Price Index | Headline / core inflation; mid-month release | | **BOJ** | Bank of Japan | Major central bank; policy meetings move JPY vol | | **SOFR** | Secured Overnight Financing Rate | Post-LIBOR USD risk-free rate benchmark | | **FedWatch** | CME FedWatch Tool | Fed funds futures path extractor | | **SOFRWatch** | CME SOFRWatch Tool | SOFR futures path extractor (current post-LIBOR) | | **TYVIX** | CBOE/CBOT 10-Year U.S. Treasury Note Volatility Index | Older Treasury vol index; redundant with CVOL (don't use daily) | | **10y** | 10-year (Treasury yield) | Standard notation for the 10-year benchmark | | **1w / 1m** | 1 week / 1 month | Time windows for CVOL comparison | | **BF (butterfly)** | 25-delta call IV + 25-delta put IV avg minus ATM IV; measures tail premium | **REMOVED from daily routine 2026-07-12 (Session 22) — sign convention conflicted with locked deck convention. See minute 1:00 removal note for re-add protocol.** | --- ## Tool stack (single source of truth) **Primary:** CME QuikStrike free tier (Bantix) — `https://www.cmegroup.com/tools-information/quikstrike.html` → free tier via CME account - **ZN** (10-Year T-Note), **ZB** (30-Year T-Bond), **ZF** (5-Year T-Note) — ATM IV on the front-month option - ZN 25Δ RR (risk reversal) on the front-month (BF removed 2026-07-12 — see minute 1:00 removal note) - Term structure: 1M / 3M / 6M / 1Y ATM IV for ZN (weekly only) **Secondary (regime cross-check):** CME CVOL Index — `cmegroup.com/market-data/cme-group-benchmark-administration/cme-group-volatility-indexes-faq.html` - 10y CVOL daily, with 1w and 1m comparison **Secondary (forward path):** CME FedWatch / SOFRWatch — `cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch.html` (or SOFRWatch for current post-LIBOR pricing using SOFR, the Secured Overnight Financing Rate) - Probability of Fed cut by next meeting, by year-end **Write destination:** `01-journal/` daily-journal template (or a dedicated spreadsheet). One line per day. Five numbers. --- ## The 5-minute routine ### Minute 0:00 — Read the curve (15 sec) **Question:** Where are we in the vol regime? **Action:** ZN ATM IV on front-month option. Today vs yesterday. **Three states:** Rising (regime expanding) / Falling (regime compressing) / Flat (no new info) **State aloud:** "ZN vol is X, was Y yesterday, [direction]." ### Minute 0:15 — Read the skew (45 sec) **Question:** Is the market more worried about one direction than the other? **Action:** 25Δ RR (risk reversal) on front-month ZN. **Sign convention:** Negative RR = puts expensive = market pricing downside vol (typical ZN state). Positive RR = calls more expensive. **Connection to Block 010:** The skew tells you dealer flow. If puts are expensive, dealers are net-short puts. Fragile position — rally forces dealer short-covering. RR compressing = dealers reducing short-put books (positioning data, not directional signal). **State aloud:** "RR at X, puts Y richer than calls" or "skew is flat." ### Minute 1:00 — ~~Read the tail (BF)~~ — REMOVED 2026-07-12 (Session 22 cleanup) **Status:** Removed. The BF (butterfly) sign convention was inconsistent across the vault — the daily routine had one sign, the locked deck convention (`bf-convention.md`, locked 2026-07-08) had the opposite. Three recurrences of the sign error in one session (Probe 7 real-time + Anki card push + post-push user flag) traced back to this routine as a source of confusion. Rather than fix the convention in 4 places across the routine (minute 1:00, exercise C, decision tree Q3, and the glossary), the BF read is **removed from the daily routine entirely** until the convention is locked across the vault with a single source of truth. **Re-add protocol:** When BF is re-introduced to the daily routine, (1) verify the sign convention against `bf-convention.md` at the time of re-add, (2) cross-check the 15 BF scenario cards in the Anki deck for consistency, (3) update the macro-mentor skill with a "BF sign verification" pre-write check. **Replacement action at this minute:** Use the freed 30 seconds to do a vol-of-vol read on ZN ATM itself (today vs 1w ago) — a 5%+ one-day move in ATM is vol-of-vol in motion. Log as "vol-of-vol: [rising/falling/flat]." ### Minute 1:30 — Cross-check the regime (45 sec) **Question:** Does the surface story match the broader vol regime? **Action:** CME CVOL index for 10y. Today vs 1w and 1m ago. **Decision:** "CVOL at X, was Y a week ago, Z a month ago." Compare to ZN ATM from minute 0:00. They should roughly track. If they diverge (ZN ATM up, CVOL down), something is moving at the wings — that's vol-of-vol in action. **State aloud:** "CVOL at X, surface story: [regime / skew / tail from above]." ### Minute 2:15 — The forward view (45 sec) **Question:** What does the market price for the next 1-3 months? **Action:** CME FedWatch / SOFRWatch. Implied probability of Fed cut by next meeting and by year-end. **State aloud:** "Market pricing X% probability of a cut by [date]." **Block 010 connection:** This is the four-layer extraction we taught, but on the rates path instead of the vol surface. The tool does the digital-receiver extraction for you. Compare to your view. If you think the market is underpricing cuts, you're implicitly saying the receiver swaption is mispriced. That's a tradable view, not vibes-based. ### Minute 3:00 — Write the number (60 sec) — NOT OPTIONAL **Action:** One line in your daily log. Four numbers. Same format every day: ``` 2026-07-12 | ZN ATM 5.5% | RR -0.3 | CVOL 4.7 | FedWatch cut-by-Sep 35% ``` **Why this minute matters:** The act of writing is the recall. Anki covers recall over weeks; this covers recall over days. They're complementary, not redundant. ### Minute 4:00 — The exercise (60 sec, not optional) **Question:** "If I had to take a vol position based on today's surface, what would it be? And why would I NOT take it?" **Rotate through two daily exercises (BF-related exercise removed 2026-07-12 — see minute 1:00):** **Exercise A — Directional read on the surface.** "RR is at -0.5 (puts expensive). If I think this is structural (dealer short-put overhang), I'd... what? What's the trade? What's the invalidation? What would make me wrong?" **Exercise B — Regime classification.** "CVOL is 4.7, was 4.5 yesterday. That's a 4% one-day move. Is this a regime shift or noise? What would confirm? What would disconfirm?" **Decision rule:** If you can't articulate why you'd take AND why you wouldn't take, you don't have a view. That's the answer. Most days, you don't have a view. The exercise is teaching you to recognize that. ### Minute 5:00 — Set the watch (15 sec) **Action:** Look at the calendar. FOMC / CPI / Treasury refunding / BOJ in next 5 trading days? If yes, note it. The vol surface in the 2-3 days *before* the event is the surface to watch, not the surface on event day (which has already priced the event). --- ## What to skip (don't add to daily) - **The full chain of strikes.** You only need ATM + 25Δ RR. Two strikes. Everything else is noise at the daily-read level. - **Barchart / Investing.com / TradingView free data.** Redundant with QuikStrike for Treasury futures. TradingView FX_IDC tickers useful for FX ATM IV only if trading FX. - **Saxo FX Options Analyser daily.** Weekly is enough for FX vol context. - **Bloomberg / Refinitiv / paid tools.** Not for daily use. Quarterly is enough. - **TYVIX.** Redundant with CVOL. Pick one; CVOL is the modern, cleaner index. - **BF (butterfly) on the surface.** Removed 2026-07-12 (Session 22) — sign convention was inconsistent across the vault. See minute 1:00 removal note. Re-add only when convention is locked across the vault. ## The decision tree (the meta-routine) After every reading, ask these three questions in order: ``` 1. Is the vol regime expanding or compressing? - Expanding: stress, new info, defensive posture - Compressing: normalization, post-event, complacency 2. Is the skew saying one direction is more feared? - Yes: positioning is asymmetric, dealer flow is the cause - No: no directional premium, broad-based vol is the story 3. Does the FedWatch path match my view? - Yes: no edge (you're priced in) - No: the difference between my path and the market's path IS the trade ``` If (3) is "the market is wrong about the path," you have a directional view on rates. **Before taking a directional futures position, ask: what's the vol trade that expresses this view with less directional risk?** Often the vol surface is mispricing the *timing* of the move (dealers short receivers into a Fed meeting, vol is cheap, you buy receivers) — that's a better expression than a directional futures position. --- ## Weekly extension (+5 min, run on Fridays) After the daily routine, on Fridays add: 1. **Term structure check (60 sec):** QuikStrike — pull 1M / 3M / 6M / 1Y ATM IV for ZN. Note curve shape: inverted (near-term > long-term = event risk priced), upward-sloping (normal, no event in window), or flat (transition state). 2. **Cross-asset check (60 sec):** Saxo FX Options Analyser (free, no account) — pull EUR/USD (Euro vs U.S. Dollar) 1M ATM, 25Δ RR. Note in log. Compare to last Friday. (BF removed 2026-07-12 — see minute 1:00 removal note for re-add protocol.) 3. **Trade log (120 sec):** If you took a position during the week, write the entry price, the vol surface reading at entry, and the thesis. If you didn't, write "no trade — view was: [one sentence]." The exercise is *not* taking trades when you don't have a view. That's the practice. 4. **Surface move summary (60 sec):** Compare this Friday's numbers to last Friday's. Note moves: ATM up X%, RR moved Y. This is the "what did the surface do this week" record. Over time, you build an instinct for which moves matter (regime shifts) and which are noise (positioning adjustments around monthly options expiry). --- ## What this routine does for retention - **5 minutes/day × ~250 trading days = ~21 hours/year** of deliberate practice on the vol surface - **Spaced across 5 distinct concepts:** regime, skew, tail, forward path, exercise - **Written down daily:** look back at what you thought last week - **Anki covers recall over weeks** (definitions, formulas, anti-patterns from Block 010) - **Daily routine covers application over days** (reading live data, classifying regime, articulating a view) - **You need both.** Recall without application is academic. Application without recall is unreliable. --- ## Practical notes - **Set a daily reminder** for the same time every day. Variance is the enemy of routines. - **Don't skip the write-the-number minute** even if "you'll remember." You won't. - **Don't skip the exercise minute** even if "you don't have a view." Recognizing no-view is the practice. - **The 5-minute routine works in any market regime** — the numbers change, the questions don't. - **If you miss a day, don't double up the next day.** Just resume. The point is the cumulative pattern, not the daily perfect execution. --- ## Cross-references - Block 010 synthesis: `~/Obsidian-Macro/00-methodology/study-program/blocks/010-yield-vol-swaption-surface.md` - Vol resource stack: `~/Obsidian-Macro/03-research/deep/volatility-trading-resources.md` - Risk framework v0.3 (sizing reference): `~/Obsidian-Macro/00-methodology/risk-framework.md` - Anki deck: `Macro Study::Phase 1 — Components::Rates` (18 cards tagged `block-010 session-15`)