August 7, 2021 | Daily JAM, Friday Trick or Trend |
On Friday, August 6, the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) retreated another 6.54% to 16.15. That puts the “fear index” back in the “complacency zone” where I’ve been looking to buy Call Options on the VIX in anticipation of a bounce back to the top of the current zone at 20 on the next “bad news” day. (Whatever the bad news might be.) This trade, which is not dependent on any call about a bear market or even a market correction but rather on the simple bounce from levels of extreme compliance, recommends buy the Call Option on the VIX when it breaks below !6 and then selling the Call Option when it breaks above 20.
June 11, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Yesterday the Standard & Poor’s 500 hit its first new all-time high since early May as investors and traders bought into the reassurance from the Federal Reserve that the 5% year over year increase in the Consumer Price Index was merely a temporary jump in inflation. Today, with the weekend immediately ahead and the June 16 meeting of the Fed’s interest-rate setting Open Market Committee looming on Wednesday, June 16, nobody wanted to get much further ahead of actual news from the central bank.
April 1, 2021 | Daily JAM |
With the financial markets closed tomorrow for Good Friday, traders and investors jumped in to buy today ahead of what is expected to be a jobs report tomorrow morning showing unemployment dropping to 6.0% (by the official measure) from 6.2% in February. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed up 1.18%. The Dow Jones Industrial average ended 0.52% higher. The NASDAQ Composite finished higher by 1.76%. And the small cap Russell 2000 gained 1.50% on the day.
February 15, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
A JPMorgan Chase measure of cross-asset complacency that includes valuations, portfolio positioning, and price momentum is nearing its higher level since the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. Global investors are the least fearful they’ve been in two decades
November 12, 2020 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
The VIX, the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index, gained 11% today to close at 26.03. But the index, which measures how much investors and traders are wiling to pay in the options market to hedge risk on the Standard & Poor's 500 index of stocks looking out over the...
November 8, 2018 | Daily JAM, VIX, Volatility |
The trend is still down, in my opinion, despite today's slight gain in the volatility index. The CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX), often called the "fear index" because it measures how much traders and investors are willing to pay to hedge risk in the S&P...
July 31, 2016 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Volatility |
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February 2, 2012 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Markets go up when money sitting on the sidelines changes its mind so the shift from bearish to bullish by big bank strategists is certainly a boost to the current rally. If bank strategists are now bullish when they were bearish, it’s a reason, in itself, to think that this rally will run for a while yet. But I think the sense that is creeping into the market that the bad days of high volatility are over is premature.
