About the author

VolatilityGyan is written and maintained by Bulan Sarkar, a markets educator who built this library to fix one specific failure. Most volatility explanations define implied volatility, show a picture of a smile, mention that IV crushes after earnings, and stop. None of that tells you why the smile exists, why the crush is not free money, why your IV Rank and your broker's IV Percentile disagree, or why a short straddle that has worked for eleven months is not eleven months of evidence.

Editorial approach

Each page is drafted from established derivatives theory, checked against primary sources where they exist, and then verified against the site's own engine. If a page claims a one-standard-deviation move is 432 points, the engine computes it from the same inputs and the two must agree. Every diagram is generated from the model the page describes, so the picture cannot illustrate something the prose does not say. Rules of thumb are labelled as rules of thumb. Where practitioners genuinely disagree — as they do about whether the volatility risk premium is compensation for risk or a behavioural anomaly — we present the disagreement rather than resolve it.

On the absence of recommendations

There are no trade calls here and there never will be. Not because of a legal technicality, but because volatility analysis genuinely does not produce them. Knowing that implied volatility is in the 80th percentile tells you about the price of options. It tells you nothing about whether that price is too high, because the market may be right. A recommendation would additionally require knowing your capital, your existing positions, your tax situation and your tolerance for the fortnight in which a short-volatility book gives back a year of gains — none of which a web page can know.

Corrections

If a formula, a figure or an explanation is wrong, tell me and it gets fixed. Use the contact page. Material corrections are logged on the update history. Read the Editorial Policy and Methodology for the standards this site holds itself to.

Last updated 10 July 2026.