I learned about FOMO four years ago as friends laughed at my continued ignorance of modern terms, or as I like to call them, lazy abbreviations. I can appreciate this particular shorthand a bit more for its muppet-like goofy sound and its lexical proximity to FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) — which invites its own missive for another time.

“Fear of missing out” continues to drive the market rally. Two phenomena stand out as reasons why I believe this to be the prime mover of the benchmark indices and not true, long-term optimism.

Every time we bump up against meaningful…

After a month of very little (good) trade, last week gave a glimmer of hope that near-term volatility might improve. The move could be blamed on a variety of culprits but the key component seems to have been on the looming possibility that inflation is rising faster than previously anticipated.

Sure, the continual yo-yo that is crypto currency may have startled a few novice punters, and the pandemic’s wave of destruction in India could serve as a harbinger of a double black swan event were the virus to significantly mutate and render our vaccines worthless. …

The market continues to rise and volatility continues to fall — somewhat. Although the relationship between market direction and volatility trends inversely, there’s obviously a limit to this. Stocks can rise forever, at whatever speed, but vol can never drop below zero, and its movement will slow tremendously as it starts to approach nil.

At all-time S&P index highs, the VIX sits muddling around 17. After a year filled with much market turmoil, this feels like an incredibly depressed level, but a quick look at the historical value for the S&P index show that 17 lies right in the average…

Near the end of the ol’ floor days, a small minority of traders routinely supplied the vast majority of markets for customer-quoted prices in the VIX pit. The advent of negotiated trading (where brokers proffer hypothetical offers to secure their cut of a marketable order) permitted non-market-making traders to wait in the wings and reap the benefits made possible by the work of risk-taking market makers willing to actively price hundreds of securities.

Needless to say, I vehemently disliked this system and I frequently found myself awash with enough anger and frustration that I would occasionally “go on strike.” This…

At 5:00 PM today, when the market reopened after its brief two day slumber, buyers quickly forced a 20 point rally in the S&P index. Not to be out done, a couple hours later the sellers decided they’d had enough of the optimism and swiftly pushed things in the other direction to the tune of 30 points. Many of those buyers and sellers were probably even the same people.

This evening’s schizophrenic behavior, as well as that of the past week, appear to be the result of rising bond yields and tech stock pullbacks on one hand, and the continual…

Just when it looked as if the market had lunar aspirations, the reality of financial gravity set in and the futures tumbled right back down to a more reasonable level. As justified as the mini-correction is, it doesn’t mean that it didn’t inflict a little bit of pain on those of us haughty enough to take aim at the 3700 line in the SPX. Somewhere down in the 3720 area, this author had to call uncle and eat a couple thousand dollar loss.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to fits of frustration and anger as the market tanked…

Just another pedestrian 600 point rally for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Facetious as that last sentence may sound, there exists a bit of truth under the sarcasm.

Years of trading has inured me to the occasional violent down moves. The nature of investing and the ebb and flow of market gains and subsequent retractions presented themselves rather clearly on October 19th, 1987. Until everyone collected their thoughts in the aftermath of what was the greatest market calamity up to the point, the shape of the volatility curve looked a lot like it does today…but mirrored.

Besides the basic bell-curve…

Near misses really sting, but they are inevitable if unpredictable. Sometimes the best laid plans fall to pieces due to a mis-timing error — even one as little as fifteen seconds, or however long it took me to walk from my office to my kitchen. When the market continues to inexplicably rise and the end of the day approaches rapidly, it’s hard to not make a trade or two to take advantage of heightened volatility levels.

Of course, the market decides that is the perfect time to break south. With heightened concerns that the largest stimulus package ever may combine…