The US stock market is likely to have its second-best year since the financial crisis. While the Dow has touched a new all-time high one out of every four days this year, the Nasdaq is up almost 30% year to date. One $64-million-dollar question that every investor wonders about is, will the bull market continue next year?

Another major characteristic of this bull run is that volatility has remained significantly low. Twelve months ago, the VIX's sustaining below a 10 handle was not on anyone's forecast list for 2017. One of the main reasons explaining a low-VIX environment is that 2017 hasn't seen any major pullback: 3% is as much as the stock market has retreated in the past twelve months. However, while many may view VIX as a bargain at this time, we would like to remind investors that VIX is cheap only if it poised to rebound soon, as trading VIX exposes investors to significant risk.