Stocks Back On Track Or A Volatility Smackdown?

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Everyone's breathing a sigh of relief after today's bounce. The S&P rallied back near where the week started. 

Crisis averted, right?

Wrong.

I need to show you something that Wall Street is completely ignoring. The market bounced hard today, yet volatility indicators refused to collapse. The VVIX still sits above 110. Volatility futures trended up all week. The VIX barely budged despite this rally.

That's not normal. When markets bounce this hard, volatility should crater. It's not happening.

Here's what the elevated volatility is telling us:

  • We hit the lower edge of this week's expected move at 6,590
  • The market priced in a $144 move and delivered exactly that
  • Nearly 100 million option contracts traded yesterday (one of the biggest days ever)
  • Next week has only 3.5 trading days but carries a $150 expected move

The panic this week was completely unjustified. We stayed inside the expected move the entire time. But the real warning isn't the selling we saw. The real warning is what we didn't see.

Correlation never kicked in. We had brief moments where the S&P 100 showed 90 stocks declining together, but it was fleeting. 

There was no capitulation. No one threw in the towel. The bond market barely saw rotation during the selloff.

Without correlation, you can't have capitulation. Without capitulation, the selling hasn't really begun.

Add to this the staggering concentration in zero DTE trading. 

NVIDIA NVDA did 6 million contracts today…Tesla nearly 4 million...SPY hit 11 million contracts…SPX traded almost 5 million contracts (10 times the notional size of SPY).

Everyone is trading like there's no tomorrow. 

That concentration makes the market unpredictable and sets up the next leg of volatility.

Next week brings Thanksgiving. Markets close Thursday and open for just a half session Friday. Yet we're carrying a $150 expected move into a shortened week. Volatility isn't pricing in calm. It's pricing in chaos.

The bounce today changes nothing. Volatility indicators are screaming that more two-sided action is coming. Until the VVIX drops below 110, until volatility futures collapse, until we see real correlation kick in, you're not safe.


Video Length: 00:22:53


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