The VIX is the CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange) metric of volatility regarding S&P 500 futures (SPX).Currently, the VIX is trading near it’s lowest levels since 2008, allowing bear traders and bull hedgers an attractive entry point for some risk or insurance in their portfolios.

Even after the TARP fund liquidity injections in the U.S. financial sector in 2008, the E.U. has decided to bail out one of it’s member states, Greece, from insolvency. How can this even be considered? Yes, the EU constitution is a whopping 7 years young and therefore demands a minuscule thread of adherence by member states,
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“That will never happen to this country.” – Timothy Geitner in response to suggestions that the U.S. Treasury may one day lose its Aaa credit rating. Perhaps inspired by Niall Ferguson’s dramatic Financial Times piece, “A Greek Crisis Coming To America“, we see today as a prime opportunity to recap our short U.S. Long Term
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The last week has seen 100 day moving averages torn apart, surprises from economic data reports, and one of the most notable sell-offs for stocks in some time. Recently, many home gamers and pros alike, have put financials out of their purview. The erratic and effectively risky nature of these names are less than inviting, but
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Earnings season officially began, as the first member of the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average to grab Q4 2009 earnings headlines, Alcoa (AA), reported a net profit of $0.01 EPS on Monday, January 11. The shortfall to the $0.06 EPS market consensus was explained by CEO Klaus Kleinfield by the unexpected weakness in the dollar,
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The January 11-15, 2009 week will be crucial to the movement of equities and commodities over the next month. This addition of the Weekly Spectrum will recap the December Employment report and explain which economic reports will affect U.S. financial markets in the week ahead. The December Non-Farm Payroll report dropped traders' jaws as if they
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The Institute for Supply Chain Management surprised the world on Monday morning, as they announced the results of their manufacturing managers survey. The report is essentially a survey where every manager is asked to respond to his own experience. Each manager states whether they see conditions improving, deteriorating or remaining constant, with respect to thirteen main criteria. The December survey’s
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Is anyone else sick of the montage of blog posts and articles titled "yada yada yada 2010"?  To institutional investors who have to decorate their books to look "pretty" for investor relations meetings, the end of the year is important, but to actual investors, traders, analysts, etc., (i.e. readers of this blog, Seeking Alpha, WSJ,
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With the autumn comes the brisk northern air that reminds us of the fragility of life and the strict laws of nature; lessons which most years occupy a few thousand microns of brain tissue as such trivial metaphysical notions pass under the radar of consciousness. Yet it seems that we humans subscribe to a separate reality
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Japan's revised 2009 third quarter growth fell to a third of the economy's previously reported GDP, as corporations slashed spending and prices fell. The initial estimate of 2009 Q3 growth reported the pace of expansion at 4.8% annually compared to the most current revision to 1.3%. Prime Minister Hatoyama announced a 7.2 trillion Yen ($81
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