Quick and dirty

Cali and back real fast

Quick trip for a one-day conference in SoCal, so posting this tonight. Nice whipsaw in markets as our President and a plane-load of CEOs headed off to Beijing for the big summit. We would expect nice noises but we shall see.

Meanwhile, the intraday disruption was enough to knock six points off the VIX Mix (the final number might change a touch), dropping from 60% to 54%. Importantly, the bearish components jumped from one to five.

The problem we’ve got is that the charts are telling us that investors are not trusting the equity markets. The VIX Mix has gone way off script with its trend line unable to follow the lead of the S&P 500.

Viewed through another lens, we have SPY climbing while VIX has also been trending higher - causing our inverse EMA ratio to turn down. Another way to picture this is that VIX has been sneaking higher in sync with the uptrend for SPY. Not exactly bullish.

We’ve also gotten some mileage out of our VIX squeeze chart over on the X. Here it is for any readers who don’t follow over there. Essentially, the VIX has been moving in an increasingly narrow range. That quietude can last for a while, but you can’t be surprised if the ultimate end is a meaningful spike.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve got for now. Red-eye back to the East Coast tomorrow night so the next installment may come from LAX before we board. Maybe tomorrow will be uneventful from a vol perspective.

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