After last week's brief war with North Korean-inspired volatility explosion (and just as rapid subsequent retracement), some have asked if the resulting market decline, which is down a further 1% on today's latest terrorist attack in Spain, has made stocks more attractive.
As we showed earlier today, last Thursday's unexpected, historic VIX explosion, driven by a surge of geopolitical worries about North Korea, and subsequent collapse was remarkable in both how fast and furious it was both on the way up and then, on the way down.As Bank of America said "both the spike in vol and the speed of its retracement were almost unmatched."
The S&P 500 has not seen a drawdown of more than 3% since the election last November. As PensionPartners' Charlie Bilello notes, this is the second longest run in history...
The Dow has hit 31 all-time highs in 2017 and has done so with no more than a 3% pullback.
Additionally, Bilello notes this is the fourth longest streak in US history without a 5% drop...
It’s been more than a year since the S&P 500 has suffered a 5% pullback...
Buried deep in today's FOMC Minutes was a warning to the equity markets that few noticed...
This overall assessment incorporated the staff's judgment that, since the April assessment, vulnerabilities associated with asset valuation pressures had edged up from notable to elevated, as asset prices remained high or climbed further, risk spreads narrowed, and expected and actual volatility remained muted in a range of financial markets...
Sometimes you have to just throw in the towel, know when to fold 'em, and join 'em coz you can't beat 'em.. and that appears to be former fund manager Richard Breslow's take on the current utter apathy in markets currently. His message is clear - nothing matters except technical levels - which ironically, none other than CNBC's-own Jim Cramer admitted this morning "the market is completely divorced from whatever is going on," whioch presumably means "buy it all."
Via Bloomberg,