Stupid question for you stock/finance gurus

[vovan]

Alright, so I don't play on the stock market. I don't have a brokerage account. I don't know anything about trading regulations for individual investors, nor it's implications on taxes.

So... Talk to me like I'm 4 years old, please.

Now, the question. From what I understand, market is crazy volatile right about now. From what I understand also, such volatility cannot last forever. Hence the question: what prevents me from opening an online account today, selling a ton of VIX, and cashing in a couple months down the road, when it's back down to normal levels?

There's a lot of questions I don't know the answer to...

Can you even trade volatility index as an individual investor? (ETrade has charts for VIX, and buy/sell buttons, so it would seem yes, but for some reason, charts show 0 volume for a while, so it would seem no...)

Are there liquidity issues I need to worry about?

Are there some sort of regulations that say I cannot have the entire "portfolio" comprised of a single short position?

Anything else I didn't think about?

Some enlightening answers would be appreciated, because it seems like easy money, too easy to be true.

[vovan]

Meh, never mind. I think I figured it out. I guess the reason there's no money to be made here, actually, is because you can't actually trade VIX directly, and since everybody knows it's going to go down eventually, options are priced accordingly.

[Bkeela]

Why not visit your local casino or put some money on horses?

[East Street Trader]

You could look here, I suppose.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/vixoption.asp

You are day dreaming though.

[vovan]

Would be nice to hear some motivation.