Saturday, September 4, 2010

Market volatility index had an event filled August

A slight increase within the consumer confidence directory triggered a surge in the wall street Tuesday morning. Then the minutes from the latest Fed meeting were made public and also the marketplaces slid back into negative territory. Reports of growth in United States and Chinese manufacturing on Wednesday launched the wall street upward in early hours of investing. Analysts say those gains will most likely be erased once the August jobs report is announced by the Department of Labor on Friday. This late burst of schizophrenia concludes the darkest August for stock traders in ten years. The year 2001 was also the last time the Marketplace Volatility Index, abbreviated as VIX and also called the “fear index,” had such a large jump in the month of August, when it rose by almost 11 percent. Resource for this article – Stock market volatility: fearful! over reactions to economic data by Newystype.com.

The way the fear catalog specifies volatility

When the markets closed Monday the VIX was at 27.21. Tuesday, the VIX finished at 24.55-a drop of 4.2 percent. On Wednesday, the VIX rose 4.8 percent to 28.77. MarketWatch reports that since the VIX rises when stocks come “unglued,” traders use it as a measure of fear among investors. The rise of the fear directory matched the fall of the stock exchange as August progressed to its dismal end. The VIX is up one day and down the next. Nevertheless, the Wall Street Journal reports that it would need to shoot much higher to cause widespread panic. The fear index topped 80 after Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008.Throughout the stock market “flash crash” in May, it shot past 40.

Marketplaces not behaving normally

When minutes from the last Federal Reserve meeting were released, they revealed the Fed was uncertain about the United States of America financial outlook and what to do about it. U.S. blue-chip stocks responded in kind, falling to put the finishing touch on the worst August for stocks since 2001. Yet stocks resumed climbing Wednesday, the Associated Press reports. Reports showing robust gains in U.S. and Chinese manufacturing surprised everybody and generated optimism about economic recovery worldwide. Traders drove the marketplaces down through August by betting that an economy losing steam would in turn do the exact same for corporate earnings. But since numerous large businesses rely seriously on business overseas, they could benefit from expectations that foreign economies will expand.

Unpredictability catches analysts off-guard

After the market’s August swoon, The New York Times reports that Wednesday’s rebound caught professionals off-guard. Expectations were that with Labor Day imminent, the marketplaces would be coasting, said Stephen J. Carl, head equity trader at the Williams Capital Group within the Times article. An Institute for Supply Management report that is a crucial economic indicator for American traders showed its manufacturing index unexpectedly increasing to 56.3 in August from 55.5 in July. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast a weaker reading of 53.. Carl said he was “perplexed” because those numbers shouldn’t be boosting stocks. Yet data on the horizon portends a reality check. Traders are bracing themselves for Friday’s report on unemployment. Another job loss of 100,000 is predicted to be within the jobs report from the Labor Department. Unemployment is expected to get worse. Some predict the rate will spike to 9.6 percent. T! he VIX is expected to respond in kind.

Further reading

MarketWatch

marketwatch.com/story/vix-notches-biggest-august-rise-in-over-a-decade-2010-08-31?dist=afterbell

Wall Street Journal

online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100825-709386.html

Associated Press

google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jmT59dgLTTziX4p9X9MRBRpWZGdQD9HV60602

New York Times

nytimes.com/2010/09/02/business/02markets.html?partner=rss and emc=rss



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