They’re back! Fears of a slowdown in growth in 2019, that is
Remember last week? Markets were running over with optimism that growth in the U.S. and global economies continue strong in 2019, that the U.S.-China trade war was headed to a resolution, that earnings growth in reports for the fourth quarter would be above...
Why the rally isn’t holding: After yesterday’s 1,000 point gain, today the profits are on the downside
Yesterday, Wednesday December 26, U.S.markets staged a historic rally with the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining more than 1,000 points. All of the major U.S. indexes gained better than 4% on the day. Today, Tuesday, December 27, as of noon New York time, the Dow...
Trick or Trend: Clearly volatility is climbing–
Our regular (or occasional or perhaps occasionally regular) Friday series (actually running on Sunday 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. The...Good news and bad news on risk today after Trump-Xi “success”
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Today this looks increasingly like a market in sector rotation
The major U.S. indexes opened the day strongly lower on disappointing earnings news and guidance from Amazon (AMZN) and Alphabet (GOOG) after the market close yesterday. But the markets reversed in the morning going--the low for the day for the Standard & Poor's...
How low can volatility and the VIX go? And how fast?
Yesterday, October 16, the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) fell 17.28% to 17.62. That's a huge drop from the closing local high of 24.98 on October 11. If the market's very, very positive reaction to Netflix earnings delivered after the close yesterday is any...
Volatility market pulls back from “inversion panic”
Futures on the VIX, the CBOE Volatility Index, often called the "fear index" since it rises when traders look to hedge against a drop in the market, toyed with "backwardation" in today's session. If you don't know what the means, you're by no means alone. Â But what's...
This market’s volatility puzzle–it’s as if investors and traders don’t think risk is climbing in the general market
Facebook (FB) falls almost 20%. Netflix (NFLX) tumbles 14%. Twitter (TWTR) is down 21% on earnings. Intel (INTC) finished today down 9%. And yet the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), which measures the price that traders are willing to pay to hedge risk VIX, the so-called...
Special Report on Investing in a Late Cycle Market Part 2: Sell offs in Late Cycle Markets are contagious, very contagious
The big reason to distinguish the business cycle from the credit cycle–as I did in Part 1 of this Special Report “Investing in a Late Cycle Market: Late Cycle Markets are crazy–Part 1, The problem”–is that the disruption caused by late credit cycle markets is way more contagious globally than the disruption created by late business cycle markets.
What’s happened to the fear?
Remember just two weeks ago when all the talk was about the end of the cycle? How this was as good as things were going to get? About how profit margins had peaked? Today? Well, we’re knocking at the doors of those highs again.
Monday was not the quiet day it seemed for U.S. stocks–and the intraday collapse wasn’t a good sign
On the surface, nothing much happened in U.S. stocks today. The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index closed up 0.33% for the day. Ho hum. But intraday the S&P 500 showed an entirely different story.
