Chris Dover

Weekly Market Overview is back S&P down 2%. Semis down 10%. The average stock finished green Money didn’t leave the market. It left the crowded trade What the systems did and what I’m watching this week

The comments are full of 0’s claiming they were the mythical 2nd Lt that was good at land nav

Classic!

It's downright jarring how bad siri is in the year 2026

A little X growth trend I’ve seen the last 5 days Post something negative about bitcoin and Temu Jim Cramer aka @jason eill retweet it

First hour market update $SPY Friday closed $755.72, under the $763.61 to $775.55 range Roughly 20% of trading days involve a close outside the days range, and Fridays was 1/5... that's normal First close outside since Oct 22 One close outside is a wobble. Two in a row is a message, so we'll keep our eyes open for another one today It also closed below October’s value area ($761.50 to $775.50) - notable Today: $750.07 to $761.80 Through Friday: $742.35 to $769.10 Another close under $750.07 makes it two in a row Back above $761.50 and Friday was a wobble It’s the close that matters

Most people think they know what the VIX is, they think it's the "fear index", that ain't it. Understanding what the VIX is and isn't puts you in an exclusive private club that most people think they are already a part of, but clearly aren't. It isn't as hard as you think... Think of the VIX as the price of umbrellas. When everyone expects a storm, umbrellas get expensive. After weeks of sunshine, you can barely give them away. The price tells you what people are willing to pay to stay dry. Whether it actually rains is another question. The VIX works along those lines. It uses a basket of S&P 500 options, both puts and calls, to calculate how much volatility the market is pricing over the next 30 days. That number is quoted as an annualized percentage. So what does VIX 20 actually mean? A couple of shortcuts make it useful: Divide by 16: roughly 1.25% daily movement. Divide by 3.5: roughly 5.7% over the next 30 days. Those are approximate one standard dev moves, in either direction. They’re neither a daily target nor a limit on how far the market can move. The “fear gauge” nickname comes from how this usually plays out. Stocks sell off, moves get bigger, and people scramble for protection. Put prices rise and the VIX jumps. During a quiet grind higher, demand for protection often fades. Option sellers keep supplying it, collecting premium and helping push implied volatility lower. There’s usually a cost to transferring that risk. Options have historically tended to price in more volatility than the market subsequently delivers. Sellers collect a premium for carrying the risk that things get much worse than expected. Calling that insurance “overpriced” makes selling it sound easier than it is. You’re still responsible when the claim comes in. A few things are worth understanding before putting money behind a VIX view. Big spikes tend to fade as the immediate shock passes. But elevated volatility can persist. VIX above 40 doesn’t come with an expiration date. Known events matter too. CPI, Fed decisions and elections can make options covering those dates more expensive. Once the event passes, that extra premium often comes out. A bad enough surprise can send it higher instead. And stocks and VIX can rise together. Heavy demand for upside calls is one possible reason. On its own, that combination tells you very little about when a rally will end. Then there’s the product you actually trade. You can’t buy the VIX index itself. You can trade VIX futures and options, or funds that hold exposure to those contracts. Those prices reflect expectations about future volatility, so they can behave very differently from the number on your screen. Many long-VIX funds also continually roll their futures positions. When later contracts cost more than nearer ones, the curve is in contango. If that curve persists, futures can lose value as they approach expiration, creating a drag on returns. Fees and daily leverage resets can make the results worse. That’s how a reasonable market view becomes a losing trade. The protection was expensive, the move arrived too late, or the product behaved differently than you expected. Before buying protection, work out how much trouble is already included in the price. Also beware Black Monday, again

Reminder: This bull market is only 18 months old in SPU’s In AI stocks it’s a pretty deep bear market already down -30-50% in a lot of names

So we are just hate selling into the election?