March 20, 2008: 114.1 August 27, 2015: 112.6 September 7, 2016: 112.0 On October 11, 2007, the S&P 500 large cap index entered a bear market peaking at 1576.09. It would not bottom until March 9, 2009 when the tape … Continued
Jackson Hole came and went. At the annual confab, Janet Yellen, Fed chair, last Friday seemed to agree with preceding hawkish messages from three prominent FOMC members – Stanley Fischer, vice-chair, William Dudley, New York Fed president, and John Williams, … Continued
There is something interesting going on in the land of put-to-call ratios. Of late, the CBOE put-to-call ratio has diverged from the ISEE index, all equity. In Chart 1, the latter is inverted, as it is a call-to-put ratio. First … Continued
After a 13-session, heady rally off June 27th lows, U.S. stocks are beginning to reek of complacency. The question is, is it now time to turn contrarian or things might stay complacent for a little while longer? Take put-to-call ratios. … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of July 12, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: TLT, the iShares 20+ year treasury bond ETF, was punished for a 3.6-percent drop this week. This followed a parabolic rally, particularly after … Continued
Many times in the past spot VIX spikes, but cannot hang on to the gains and reverses quickly. Chart 1 only goes back eight months, but this phenomenon goes back a lot longer. VIX just experienced one such spike reversal. … Continued
In 1Q16, the S&P 500 large cap index edged up 0.8 percent. Not much. But considering that the year got off on the wrong foot, quickly losing north of 11 percent by January 20th, this was quite a comeback (Chart … Continued
U.S. stocks had a very good week last week. The S&P 500 large cap index rallied 2.3 percent, Dow Industrials 2.1 percent, both Nasdaq 100 index and Russell 2000 small cap index 3.4 percent, among others. The rally comes in … Continued
A week ago last Friday, U.S. stocks opened lower reacting to less-than-expected rise in April’s non-farm payroll. As the session progressed, bids showed up, as traders began to price in lesser odds of a rate hike in June. Turns out … Continued
On Wednesday, spot VIX (13.95) did something it had not done in a while. It dropped below 13, to 12.50, before reversing with a hammer candle (Chart 1). The last time it had a sub-13 session was on October 28th … Continued