A 25 Point Day On SPX And A VIX That Sold Off Like A Crash

Market Snapshot  – The VIX takes the cake, and it has taken a few before now.

The S&P moved 25 points yesterday. The exchange has confirmed it was open at the time.

• ES 7,784.50, +0.23%. Coiling under the NATHs.
• YM 53,981, +0.22%. Still parked below the highs.
• NQ 29,883. Squeezing into the apex with the rest of them.
• RTY 3,058.0, +0.16%. The one that has broken out.
• VIX 14.60, +0.41%. See below.
• GC 4,443.0, -0.58%. Easing back off the highs.
• CL 81.80, -0.94%. Drifting.
• BTC/USD 63,580.71. Going nowhere in particular.

The VIX sold off yesterday as though something enormous had happened, which it had not, and nobody has yet managed to get a straight answer out of it.

Another concern is VIX sold off hard yesterday as if we had put in a 50+ point straight up trending day. I’ve previously commented on the VIX doing weird things but this one takes the cake.

What’s that phrase? The markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent!

SPX – 25 points. Time to check the internet connection.

Yesterday on SPX saw an incredibly small and narrow trading range, 25 points for the day, and the 3 day average is now under 40 points.

It’s almost like being back in 2018 to see the daily normal average that. Even in the 2008 crash this was what a spicy day looked like. Now it represents me checking my data and internet to see if I’m actually connected and online.

SPX swings are still on the sidelines and right now I’m happy to be there. I’d like to say it was because of something clever and fancy, but a combination of circumstances last week and poor health this week keep me waiting. Happy to be doing that, to be honest.

I still have my speculative long puts on SPY and DIA and a few others sprinkled here and there, just in case this house of cards collapses.

Sat on the sidelines, and happy to be there.

RUT – Broken out, but we have seen this film before.

RUT has already broken the range up and out, but we’ve seen this before on RUT with an often quick sell off. This is why we add the pullback element.

So another’nother new all time high above the pullback yesterday should trigger the breakout entry. Otherwise a quick retreat back inside the range is what I’m assessing for too, for the range reversal.

Good each way trade bets. I suppose you can start to see why I suggested a long 30 delta strangle on IWM earlier in the week. It takes the directional coin toss out of it.

Breakout entry or range reversal, and I am set up for both.

Crypto – Bulls are bulling. Nothing to do but wait.

Crypto, ETH/BTC bulls are bulling nicely, nothing to do but wait. Trading the range low to the range high.

Range low to range high, and let it work.

Fun Fact

That phrase is almost universally credited to John Maynard Keynes, and there is no evidence he ever said it. The earliest trace is a column by financial analyst A. Gary Shilling in Forbes in February 1993, and Keynes only picked up the credit by 1999, more than 50 years after his death. A line about markets staying irrational for longer than you’d expect has itself been misattributed for longer than you’d expect.