With VIX experiencing an all-tiome record period of complacency, investors are increasingly protecting against an end to the current market calm.
VIX has never...ever... traded this low for this long...
Which might explain the rising demand for protection against a possible snap back to reality...
Submitted by Mark St.Cyr,
In about 30 days the Federal Reserve will hold its scheduled June (13-14) meeting of the FOMC to either give a thumbs-up, or thumbs-down to increasing interest rates in earnest once again. The odds that the Fed. will indeed raise again now stands at about 99%. In other words – it’s all but a near certainty.
"Whatever it takes."
Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih and Russia's Energy Minister Alexander Novak
That's what Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih and his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak said in a statement overnight in Beijing they would do to reduce the global oil inventory overhang, using the immortal phrase coined by ECB's Mario Draghi five years ago in his successful bid to defend the euro. For OPEC, however, "whatever it takes" may not be enough.
Equity strategists are cooling on the prospects for further gains in European stocks just as investors poured a record amount of money into the region’s equity funds...
After a French election victory for centrist Emmanuel Macron and analysts suggesting that optimism over better profits is largely priced in, forecasters now see fewer triggers for the rally to continue in 2017.
Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,
The average gasoline tax in the U.S. is 49.5 cents per gallon, according to data from the American Petroleum Institute. That’s not too bad as far as averages go, but it has been climbing over the last five years and it will continue rising as states lose hope that the federal government will chip in for infrastructure construction and maintenance, and transportation.