Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show137 Implied volatility in option pricing is one of the most critical and yet least understood aspects of this business. Today show focuses on a deep dive into options skew and the volatility smile for both inter-month and intra-month option contracts.  in addition, we'll talk very specifically about the impact of skew as expiration approaches and how Vega for near-term option contracts increases dramatically which can make it seem like option skew is predicting a huge move right before expiration - but is it really the case, and does this "predictive power" work in reality?