The Striking Price column in this weekend’s Barron’s features John Marshall from Goldman, who suggests an “opportunity to buy volatility” in the S&P Materials sector via the tracking ETF (XLB). He makes the bearish case for XLB, arguing: 1) that the materials sector is particularly vulnerable to any slowdown in global growth, 2) that the ETF components include some less resilient names, and don’t feature the best of breed like POT and MOS, and 3) that hedge funds are…
Here are some articles of interest we found this weekend. Subscribers, make sure you’re logged in and check out our weekend portfolio update. Also, warning: information and ruminations dealing with ethics, justice, and good governance ahead, so stop reading if you are allergic to any of those things.
Michael Greenberger is the most cogent defender of the view that the recent parabolic move in oil prices is due largely to structural factors enabling manipulative speculation. In this…
Steven Sears in this weekend’s Striking Price is still on board the “Keep the VIX in perspective” train:
Stop obsessing about the VIX. The Chicago Board Options Exchange’s Market Volatility Index (VIX) is many things, just not all things. It can rise or fall for reasons that have more to do with trading type than market direction. During the week, some investors sold short-term hedges and bought long-term hedges. This exacerbated the VIX’s recent lows,…
This week should be pretty volatile, with plenty of government data, earnings announcements, and Fed action to push markets to and fro. Many traders are paying special attention to the GDP announcement Wednesday morning and the FOMC news later that afternoon. As is our wont, we advise taking off some risk ahead of Fed meetings.
Markets were very quiet until the last forty-five minutes today, trading on very light volume, and the S&P 500 emini futures weren’t able to…
Sunday, July 13, 2008
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