Stocks rose today, December 10, as a huge jump in CPI inflation exactly matched economists’ projections. As they say on the basketball court, “No surprise; no foul.” The Consumer Price Index (CPI) climbed at a 6.8% annual rate in November.
Tomorrow’s inflation report–the Consumer Price Index (CPI) flavor–has the potential to end the recent uptick in stocks and send prices back down and volatility back up. Right now economists surveyed by Bloomberg are expecting a year over year increase in inflation of 6.8% in November.
With the VIX “fear index” falling back closer to “normal” levels–it dropped to 21.89 yesterday from 31.12 on December 1–it sure feels like the extreme volatility of the end of November and early December is on the ebb. The move to yesterday’s 21.89 close from December 1 was was a surge of 30% in the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index in a week. This move away from panic follows on a jump in the “fear index” in the week from November 24 to December 1 of 67% in the opposite direction. I’d be surprised if we don’t see another surge in volatility in the rest of December or in January with what promises to be a crazy earnings season, but even if volatility holds at something like today’s level–slightly elevated from the historical averages but in the rough ballpark–don’t forget that volatility has a long tail. Volatility, in fact, creates volatility. And not least of all in individual stocks.
On the theory that after Friday’s panic, we will get at least a modest recovery on Monday, I’m selling the three VIX Options in my Volatility Portfolio as soon as the market opens on Monday. The CBEO S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) jumped 54% on Friday to close to 28.62. My opinion is that we’ll see the “fear index” give back some of that jump on Monday if the market stabilizes. (If you think the market will plunge further, you should, obviously, hold onto your VIX Call options.
Our regular (or occasional or perhaps occasionally regular) Friday series (actually running on Saturday this week) Trick or Trend looks at what might (or might not) be emerging investible trends. Exclusively on JAM. This post won’t run anywhere else. Ever. There might be a trend here but with the recent performance of the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) it’s really hard to tell.
Tolstoy was wrong when he wrote at the beginning of Anna Karenina that “All happy stock markets are alike; each unhappy market is unhappy in its own way.” (That’s what it says in the original Russian, I swear.) Truth is that all happy stock markets are different.
There are the long rallies from valuation bottoms that come after a disaster like the Global Financial Crisis and the Great Recession. There are the sharp quick explosive moves higher that come after the passing of a panic with less damage than expected like that after the Pandemic meltdown in the spring of 2020. And, among all the other happy markets, there are the market melt ups that come after a long bull market has already driven valuations to nose-bleed levels. Sometimes that melt up turns out to be the final blow out stage that comes before a big correction–but not always. And sometimes the melt up just drives stocks to a high where they stagnate while fundamentals catch up with prices. I believe we’re in the midst of a market melt up now. In this Special Report I’m going to outline the ways in which this “happy” market is different; give you advice on how to adapt this rally to your portfolio goals; and finally give you 10 picks for profiting from this melt-up.
Even as stock market indexes hit record high after record high, Wall Street is buying options to hedge against risk in the Standard & Poor’s 500.
Investors and traders are showing no interest in paying to hedge risk in this market–even though we’re again near the all-time high for the Standard & Poor’s 500. Today, as of 3 p.m. New York time the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) has dropped another 3.31% to 15.77. That puts the index back in my buying range and today I’m adding the December 22 VIX Call Option with a strike price of $18 (VIX211222C00018000) to my Volatility Portfolio.
Retail investors sure tried. They bought $1.93 billion in stocks on Monday. But after a solidly higher open today, Tuesday, September 21, that saw the Standard & Poor’s 500 up 0.78% at 9:48 a.m., stocks drifted slowly lower for the rest of the day as a second day of buying on the dip failed to emerge.
Huge surge in volatility this morning. It’s as if everybody woke up and said, “Hey, you know there are risky trends in the world.” As of 12:30 p.m. New York time today, Monday, September 20, the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index is up 29.51% to $26.08. I think there’s more volatility ahead so today I’m going to sell the VIX November 17 Call Options with a strike price of 18 in my Volatility Portfolio and buy some more time with a purchase of the VIX December 22 Call Options with a strike price of 19.
I expect that the the financial markets will remember this week that the Federal Reserve will actually say something after its meeting on Wednesday, September 22. Even if the Fed doesn’t change policy at all, the central bank will deliver a new set of economic projections with views on inflation and GDP growth that could add volatility to an already nervous markThe CME Fed Watch Tool, which looks at prices in the Fed Funds Futures market to calculate market expectations for an interest rate move by the Federal Reserve, says there’s a 0% chance of a change in interest rates at Wednesday’s meeting. The odds for a Fed interest rate increase go up to only 1.8% at the November 3 meeting according to the CME Fed Watch. And are only 1.7% for the December 15 meeting. In other words the market is utterly convinced that the Fed will do nothing.
