To be clear I was talking returns on the trade - not returns on my portfolio. The distinction here is that you could not throw your whole bankroll at this trade

To be clear I was talking returns on the trade - not returns on my portfolio. The distinction here is that you could not throw your whole bankroll at this trade, because there is limited liquidity on both sides of the trade : e.g. when uvxy spikes, you are buying from the hand full of suckers that are willing to sell cheap puts. When it starts to trend back down, you are selling to the hand full of suckers that are willing to buy expensive puts. I was trading positions worth under 5k with this strategy when I was getting those returns. So yes, you are correct, this sounds too good to be true cause it is. you wouldn't be able to pull this strategy off with much more than what I was trading because the liquidity just wouldn't be there, so you could not compound these returns over time really, it would be a constant, fairly reliable source of high returns on a small amount of capital. And the offer was for a job in the industry that would afford me the opportunity to learn a lot more about investing in general, especially about volatility based securities, while I was on the clock. It roughly doubled my salary too, so it was hard to pass up.