Administrative Bulletin
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JPMorgan Chase & Co’s (NYSE: JPM) Marko Kolanovic believes the equities rally will falter, with headwinds from bank turbulence, an oil shock, and slowing growth poised to send stocks back toward their 2022 lows over the coming months. Kolanovic says this is “the calm before the storm,” adding that the equity rally is masking weaknesses from recent bank collapses and a decline in corporate profits and growth.
As a validation, we can look to ISM’s inventories exceeding that of new orders, and a dip in cost-push prices, Bloomberg’s John Authers explains. The overall ISM measure is recessionary; the upcoming earnings season may be unforgiving, and companies with weaker EPS are likely to be penalized more due to the prospects of a recession.
Tech’s outperformance, driven partly by a supply of previously demanded downside put protection, has become even more magnified recently as traders ramped up bets that banking system stresses prompt the Federal Reserve to hit the brakes.
Over the past weeks, we anticipated the markets trading “spiritedly for far longer,” quoting the likes of Kai Volatility’s Cem Karsan, who said the signs of a combustible situation would emerge when options implied volatility is sticky in a market rally.
Typically, as the market trades higher, volatility levels for fixed-strike options should decrease. If broad implied volatility measures are bid and fixed-strike volatility increases, this may lead to a more combustible situation as options counterparties begin to thin out on volatility, resulting in less support.
We maintain that you can monetize the example call structures we provided and roll some profits into bear put spreads (i.e., buy put and sell another at a lower strike), though you may limit your expectations. Some think there is a greater likelihood of a “crash-less selloff, a grinding de-leveraging.”
Read: China’s Yuan Replaces Dollar As Most Traded Currency In Russia.
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