Chart of the Week: Historical Volatility Plummets in Seasonal Swoon
‘Tis the season for the annual holiday effect in which historical volatility (HV) has a strong tendency to plunge and drag implied volatility down with it. This is a subject I have tackled on a number of occasions in the past (see links below) and is...
Chart of the Week: Banks on a Tear
There were many cross-currents in the financial markets during the last week, but one of the dominant themes was the spike in Treasury yields. As expectations for interest rates move higher, the banks are also catching a bid. Long able to borrow at Ber...
Chart of the Week: VIX Support
In this week’s chart of the week, I have created a chart of the VIX going back to June 2007 which uses weekly bars to show that just about the time stocks made their 2007 pre-crisis highs, the VIX was establishing the 17-18 area (yellow bar) as a zon...
Chart of the Week: The Resurgent Consumer and Holiday Shopping
During the first half of 2010, a recovery in manufacturing helped to lift stocks. When manufacturing plateaued, stocks gave up their gains. Now it looks like manufacturing may be picking up again, but it has been consumer spending that has been respons...
Chart of the Week: European Stocks Holding Up Well
Six months ago the European sovereign debt crisis was flaring up and my chart of the week was the Flight-to-Safety Trade.With the joint EU-IMF bailout of Ireland unfolding over the weekend and the future of Greece and Portugal in the euro zone also bei...
Chart of the Week: Uptick in the Jobs Picture
Lost in all of the attention paid to Ireland, China, Cisco (CSCO) and the week’s other headline grabbers was some signs of progress on the jobs front, specifically in the area of the weekly jobless claims data.This week’s chart of the week shows in...
Chart of the Week: Andrews Pitchfork View of SPX
I occasionally feature charts with an Andrews Pitchfork in my subscriber newsletter and I am always surprised by how favorable the reaction is. I am not sure why this is the case, but my hunch is that part of the reason has to do with the relative rari...
Chart of the Week: Money Market Mutual Funds
When the first version of this week’s chart of the week first appeared on the blog in Chart of the Week: Change of Trend in Cash Holdings? in January 2009, it generated a surprising amount of controversy. A follow-up post in March 2009, Cash on the S...
Chart of the Week: Intrade and the Midterm Elections
Three months ago in Chart of the Week: Intrade and Control of the House of Representatives, I used an Intrade.com contract as the chart of the week to illustrate how the markets were assigning probabilities to whether the Republicans would control the ...
Chart of the Week: The Google Volatility Story
If there is one widely accepted tenet of volatility that my wife refuses to give in to, it is that when a stock falls sharply its implied volatility almost automatically increases, yet when that same stock jumps sharply, its implied volatility almost a...
Chart of the Week: The Dollar and the SPX Since August 2008
If you have been using the dollar as one of your primary indicators, chances are it has been a good year or perhaps even a good several years.Stocks and the dollar do not always move in opposite directions, but for the better part of the last two years...
Chart of the Week: Looking for Sector Leadership
Stocks have rallied impressively since the beginning of July, but during that period, that has not been a particular sector which has led the rally. The lack of strong sector leadership can be seen on the one hand as a potential impediment to further b...
