Ripples start to awaken surfers on Europe's dead sea of equity volatility

Hurricanes, oil spikes and demand for commodities are stirring Europe's dormant volatility, but for how long?

After several years of calm, volatility in the European equity markets finally showed some tentative signs of picking up in August, although performance is still relatively weak compared to the expectations of managers and investors in 2002, when managers took volatility for granted.

"It's a little bit better, but we're still talking about extremely low levels. In the Swiss market, we're still in the very low double-digits," said Gerhard Schreiber, partner at Swiss Hedge Capital in Zurich.

Miche