Well, it finally happened. The short volatility trade blew up and the volatility genie is now out of the bottle. Credit and monetary conditions are still extremely loose so this should calm down soon, but I doubt we see a low volatility regime like 2017 in a long time. So here’s what happened: Two Inverse…
Following the slowest month in a long time, with volatility being compressed again, I thought it was a good time to highlight an important underlying driver of markets these days: volatility. Volatility (more importantly implied volatility) is measured and today is an actual asset class that you can “invest” in for diversification purposes. A few…
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about portfolio construction, especially for retirees, in these computer-algorithm dominated investment markets which swing wildly every time someone from the Fed speaks. Markets today are unbelievably short-term focused and my clients aren’t paying me to day-trade their retirement portfolios. This means that portfolios which are built with a long-term…
For those of you that read my latest letter to clients (which I’m sure everyone did…but if you haven’t had a chance yet, you can find it here), the S&P 500 is about to enter what I consider “Phase 3”. This means it’s time to aggressively hedge/reduce stock risk. I spent a good bit of…
I wrote in my letter to clients earlier this year that the only thing I’m certain about in the markets moving forward is that volatility will be higher than the past few years. As we move further down the path of currency wars and central bank policy divergences, there are some large risks looming overhead…
Two of the best ways to track investor’s sentiment toward risk are to track the Volatility Index (VIX) relative to stocks and high yield bonds relative to stocks – and both have been flashing “warning” signs since early July. These are important to watch because stocks are usually the last asset class to react to…
This morning the European Central Bank announced they’ll be joining the fun and adding their own Quantitative Easing. The Euro currency, which had already been falling since early May, cratered on the news. This should be “good news” for stocks. European stocks rallied on the announcement and the US market seemed poised for a positive…
In short, things look clear to continue another year or two, and possibly longer but it’s just too tough to see out beyond that right now. I am becoming increasingly concerned about stocks in the short-term though. The Volatility Index (VIX), which measures expected volatility of the S&P 500 over the next 30 days, is…