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Friday, May 26, 2017

Transient risk demise

We've seen market indications that show how extreme risks have been becoming fewer and far between.  It is quite a lengthy streak of risk famine, one that usually doesn't stay this consistently low for so long.  It is helpful to show how the market volatility has become restricted to essentially within + a percent (generally in the market it is + a couple percent), and further how for the most part we haven't even seen two highly risky days consecutively (in the same direction).  For those short the market, continue to exercise caution.  Though of course the market can turn at any point and provide outside downward risk at any moment (note it rarely through history offers outside upward risk on consecutive days).  For the many more who are long the market, now is a great time to cash in some of your more profitable holdings, as risk suppression of this magnitude won't last for too long.

Let's see the market change over the 136 days before the election (in blue color below).  The horizontal axis shows the daily change in the S&P 500, and the vertical axis shows the same change but on the following day.  Notice that there is virtually no data that is >1% jointly on both axis.  Also, we see for the 136 days after the election (through yesterday and shown in red color below), that the 99% confidence interval of market changes is even more constricted.  Irrationally, risk has essentially been obliterated.  Of course, this can't go on forever, though daily market changes have been wound up fairly tight right now that even getting back-to-back moves of beyond 1% (either up on both days, or down on both days) is becoming rarer for the time being.  A violent break from this pattern and multiple extreme down days in a row, later this year, would not be inconceivable.


We also show each of the 136 days changes on single-variable basis below, so that one can see how little risk we have seen lately.  Also, we can put the recent #ImpeachTrump -2% down-move in some perspective, seeing the #Brexit -4% shock last year!

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