While on the surface the market last week did nothing all that exciting, below it things were in abrupt turmoil - driven by the decoupling between stocks and bonds and the volatile, countertrend move in commodities and oil in particular - which was nowhere more evident than in the world of Risk-Parity funds and CTA, which suffered their worst two-week plunge since 2003.
It was just over two months ago - well before VIX hit its record stretch of nearly 20 days below 11 - when we first discussed why one of the major threats to the complacent market was the danger of a forced liquidation by trend-following and vol-neutral, CTA, risk-arb and other systematic funds - many of whom have been the fundamental catalyst for the unprecedented VIX compression seen in May - resulting in an explosive unwind of vol positions.
For those following the progression, and most recently - unwind - of the Trump reflation narrative, below are some critical observations from Charlie McElligott, head of cross-asset strategy at RBC.
Big Picture: Narrative Reset
Ever get the feeling that the market has become frustratingly fast in responding to new information, with violent swings in either direction coming ever faster even if ultimately the "BTFD" mentality always seems to prevail? Well, it's a fact.