Feeding the volatility monster: Inside Wall St's US$8b time bomb

IT was the hot trade on Wall Street, a seemingly sure thing that lulled everyone from hedge fund managers to small-time investors.

Now newfangled investments linked to volatility in the stock market - until a few years ago, obscure niche products - have exploded in spectacular fashion. The shock waves have only just begun.

How these investments proliferated is a classic story of Wall Street salesmanship and old-fashioned greed. In a few short years, financial engineering transformed expectations about the ups and downs of the stock market into an asset class that could be marketed and sold - as tradable as stocks but, it turns out, sometimes far riskier.