The Market Structure Map
July 17, 2024
The Dow Industrials gained 742 points yesterday. Randomly. The rest of the market was pedestrian. The trouble for issuers and investors alike is the comparisons. Why is this thing up and that thing down? There’s a luminous scene in the book Thirteen Moons by Charles...
June 26, 2024
Why are the Nasdaq and the Dow Jones Industrial Average diverging wildly? It might resolve in the next few days. But it’s not small. Back up to June 20 and performance was aligned. At one point Monday, five-day divergence was more than 4%. The DJIA...
March 20, 2024
I was walking up Steamboat Springs’s Emerald Mountain with my friend Charlie last week and he said, “Trading volatility is like trading air.” Charlie was a hedge-fund guy. He knows. Coincidentally, new VIX volatility options trade today. Since everyone has been selling volatility, don’t be...
February 28, 2024
Two things exploded in 2023. Trading in options contracts and illegal US immigration. No, I’m not suggesting they’re correlated! I note it bemusedly. But I do have a point. We need clarity. In options, the Futures Industry Association said equity-linked instruments saw volume double globally...
February 21, 2024
Last week, markets were abuzz over the zero that lifted LYFT. For those who were vacationing or living hermetically and missed it, Lyft reported financial results and inadvertently added a zero to adjusted EBITDA margin-expansion, giving machines the notion profit margins improved 5% instead of...
November 22, 2023
I have never been more profoundly grateful than I am this Thanksgiving 2023. I wish you the season’s blessings, and gratefulness. Prudence doesn’t hurt either. Especially if your career revolves around the US equity market, as mine does. And we don’t say prudency. So why...