Today’s post is dedicated to Scott Phillips, our resident enforcer and part time debt collector, who seems to have caught a bad break after what appears to have been a series of hare-brained decisions involving a mysterious Asian flu strain, mixed with over training, which was then exacerbated by excessive consumption of some long expired low cost GMO protein powder and unlabeled pain killers he found in some dirty dumpster around the corner. All of which combined of course put him straight in the ICU with acute kidney failure just a few days later. He’s actually lucky that he’s 10,000 km away as I feel tempted to personally come down and take him out of his misery [...]
Considering that equities are still trading a bagel throw away from all time highs it was fascinating to observe a 28% rise in implied volatility over the past week. Now I concede that current levels are probably more in line with where the VIX should be given that we’re heading into a seasonally bearish market period of the year. August has acquired a bit of notoriety over the years due to a handful of negative outliers, however on average it is September and not August that you should be worried about (see Tuesday’s post on the subject).
It’s going to be a wild Friday it seems. Retail sales and CPI data disappointed earlier this morning, causing yields and the U.S. Dollar to head straight for the basement while gold of course is heading higher. I guess gold could be trusted after all, but hindsight is always 20/20 and you never know how the numbers get shuffled. Of course the NQ is soaring as I’m typing this as bad news is good for equities – back to the old QE script I take it. Unfortunately my long term outlook on not seeing a meaningful interest hike anytime this decade seems to be playing out as feared. Or as the saying goes: Don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter
A rising tide floats all boats, as long as you’re swimming in equities apparently. Currencies, futures, and bonds however have been selling off hard since the launch of the post election Dollar rally. How far it’ll manage to run remains anyone’s guess (although I have some ideas) but it seems that it may at least be taking a little breather – for now that is: