S&P 500

Welcome to August: you may be surprised to learn that S&P 500 futures are once again levitating, higher by 0.3%, and tracking European and Asian markets. Asian equities traded higher across the board after China's Caixin Manufacturing PMI beat expectations and printed its highest since March, refuting the decline in the official PMI data reported a day earlier, while firmer commodity prices boost both sentiment and commodity stocks across Asia and Europe.

Via Global Macro Monitor,

Do the markets price risk anymore?   That seems to happens when the world is awash with central bank based liquidity.

We do see the VIX creeping back over 10 after trading with 8 handle for its only second time in history last Wednesday.

Just as with about everything else, with the exception of crude, which now seems to be pricing in some geopolitical risk,  very few markets are pricing for potential political or geopolitical shocks.

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

One of the greatest investors in the world is getting worried…

Howard Marks is the billionaire founder of Oaktree Capital, one of the largest and most successful investment firms in the world.

A few times each year Marks write up his thoughts about financial markets– he calls them ‘investment memos’.

And he just released his latest one with a very clear message: it’s time to be cautious.

From Marks’ memo…

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

There is an increasing amount of commentary which suggests this time is different. Active management of portfolios is no longer needed, as Central Banks continue to be supportive of the markets, so join in on the “passive indexing” sweeping the country.

There is no getting away from it: in what has become a long-running tradition, every day brings a new explanation (or at least attempt) to the current low-vol regime from a major bank, and today it was (again) Bank of America's turn to explain why the VIX, and cross asset vol in general, both continue to trade near all time low.