To the list of 'rigged' markets (e.g. Libor, FX, Silver, Treasuries...) we can now add VIX (which explains a lot) as two University of Texas at Austin finance professors find "large transient deviations in VIX prices" around the morning auction, "consistent with market manipulation."
It has been a seesion of violent, volatile gaps, starting with sharp gap up in S&P futures on Wednesday night, just around 10pm, which saw ES spike and rally to new all time highs on no news...
So the most deadly terror attack in Britain in 12 years, US economic data collapses, a terrible T-Bill auction, and Trump's budget hits... sending stocks to record highs...
Under normal circumstances, we would say it is strange, if ironic, that the same day the S&P is trading just shy of an all time high 2,400 again, Goldman comes out with a note warning that "global growth momentum appears to be slowing. The ISM has likely peaked, and the US labor market has tightened further.
From the latest Weekend Notes by One River Asset Management's Eric Peters
Beep Beep
The market finally woke up,” said Roadrunner, the market’s top volatility trader.“The volatility of the VIX index jumped 40% on Wednesday, that’s the 2nd biggest daily move in the VVIX we’ve ever seen.” The S&P fell just 1.8% on Trump/Comey jitters.