Sleepwalking

Over the weekend I managed to re-watch one of my favourite movies about the financial crisis of 2008 and couldn’t help but wonder, what’s happening in the world right now that everyone might be missing?

The words of Gordon Brown that we highlighted last week still echo strongly into my head…

For the sake of the world, I do hope he’s wrong and that the next big trend is one of financial success and not failure.

Today’s Highlights

Traditional Markets

Signs of complacency abound, two of which I’d like to highlight today. 

First is the bond market, which once again seems to be playing out in the background. If you’ll recall, in Q1 we were watching the yields on the US 10 Year bond like a pack of penguins on an iceberg. 

The fear that the yield might go above 3% and remain there caused the stocks to drop quite suddenly in early February. However, by the time they did poke above that level in late April, it seems the concerns of such a move had simply dissipated.

Today, the yield is sitting at 2.99% and nobody even seems to care.

The other indicator of extreme complacency is the VIX volatility index. 

As you’ll recall, this indicator also spiked in Q1 as the stocks were dropping. At the time the move was welcome as it was coming off the all-time lows for the 30-year-old indicator, which were reached recently (yellow circle).

Looking at the action at the action of the last few months, it certainly does look like the stocks are in sleepwalking territory.

Trade War: On

Even the big news of the day seems to be losing its potency. It seems that every trading day the trade war is switched on or off like a light. Today the headlines say on…

Sure, some stocks have been hit, especially in Asia, but on the face of it a 1.44% decline in the Hang Seng Index doesn’t seem like much of an impact at all.