If you’ve been around the markets long enough, you might remember February 2018.volpocalypse‘ episode that turned successful longstanding trades on their head.

Traders betting against large market moves saw their profits shrink in a matter of days, and a group of about 10 people from Lausanne, Switzerland, were spared the fright.

“As much as many thought it was good luck, it wasn’t” Guillaume Bourquenoud tells Benzinga.

The Alquant Co-founder and CEO, who started trading under a famous investor near the end of the European debt crisis, said he was able to generate high returns by betting against large market movements while relying on the company’s proprietary indicator, which analyzes what traders are offering and Demands for exchange protection, colloquially referred to as volatility.

“Just a few days before the sharp drop in stock prices, our algorithms were telling us to stop selling volatility and go full cash,” Bourquenoud recalled. “We found it quite strange because it had never happened before. All our tests confirmed that the readings were correct and we closed our positions.”

When many popular short volatility products including Credit Suisse Group AG‘S CS XIV fell by more than 90% or more, Bourquenoud says his team’s methods have been validated. In the weeks after Volpocalypse, Bourquenoud incorporated that award-winning Idea as Alquant, short for Alternative Quantitative, and used recent successes as a platform to sell research and actionable market data.

“This is actionable data and should not be construed as investment advice or recommendation. It’s like that Cboe Global Markets Inc.‘S CBOE VIX index but with some predictive power.”

Fight against actuality bias

Despite the track record, Alquant failed to go to market.

Many investors Bourquenoud spoke to felt burned by the recent crash; The risks of similar trades weren’t worth the reward. The Alquant team created new products that allowed its users to better manage stock investments with risks, …