Volatility Pulse - Are we there yet?
Waiting for the wash out
The current selloff is already 42 days old — 8 days longer than 2025's worst drawdown — yet has produced barely half the % decline, making it uniquely frustrating: long enough to be psychologically exhausting, shallow enough to not feel finished.
Source: @kevrgordon
4 Sectors in Bear Territory. Index Says 'Nah.'
16 of 25 industry groups are already 10%+ below their 52-week highs and 4 are officially in bear market territory — but the S&P 500 index itself is down just 8.74%.
Source: Bespoke
P/E Down 3 Turns, EPS Up 10% — Never Happened Before
Before this episode, the market had never seen a 5-month compression of 3+ forward P/E turns while 12-month earnings estimates simultaneously rose 10%+ — the setup is historically unprecedented, not historically resolved.
Source: Bespoke
Mag 7 Broke the Floor It's Been Standing On Since October
After holding a well-defined trading range since last October, the Mag 7 index finally broke below it — and in a market this top-heavy, what the mega caps do, the index does.
Source: @timmerfidelity
Inflation's Encore (Nobody Wanted Tickets)
$1 of Every $5 in Taxes: Already Spoken For
For every five dollars the US government collects in tax revenue, one dollar goes straight to debt service — and that's before the war-driven stimulus, energy subsidies, and defense spending start compounding.
Source: Apollo
The Strait Jacket
Stocks = Inverse of Oil
One-variable markets overwhelm sentiment, technicals, and valuation — and right now that variable is oil: as Michael Kantrowitz notes, if oil rises, the composite signal overrides everything else, making stock calls essentially oil calls.
Source: @michaelkantro
The Contrarian Whisperer
Nobody Wants to Buy Calls Anymore
Net call volume hit its lowest level since the April 2025 trade tantrums — Deutsche Bank notes that historically, readings this negative have formed durable market bottoms, though no capitulation signal has triggered yet.
Source: Deutsche Bank
46 Firms Walk Into a Century
Tech Dispersion: Second Worst Since Y2K
Driven by the software selloff diverging from hardware, technology sector return dispersion just hit its second-highest reading on record — only surpassed by 2000 — per BofA data showing NDX constituent divergence near historic extremes.
Source: BofA
The Contrarian Whisperer
3 Up Weeks Out of 12: Worst Start on Record
The S&P 500 has closed up in only 3 of its first 12 weeks of 2026 — tied for the worst annual start since 1970 — but Jason Goepfert notes this reading, while extreme, doesn't reliably predict near-term direction.
Source: @jasongoepfert
VIX Above 30: Bulls Win 9 of 10 Times
The first VIX close above 30 in 10 months just happened — and in the 10 prior instances, the S&P 500 was higher 5 trading days later 9 out of 10 times, though the analyst cautions the market is currently headline-driven.
Source: @bluekurtic
46 Firms Walk Into a Century
Software Bonds Broke Before the Stocks Did
Software company credit spreads have widened by more than 250 basis points this year — the bond market priced in AI disruption risk months before equity multiples fully adjusted, with Goldman Sachs noting this sector-level spread expansion is historically significant.
Source: Goldman Sachs
The HALO Trade: Heavy Assets Are Back in Style
Goldman's new HALO framework (Heavy Assets, Low Obsolescence) identifies companies leading a return to tangible productive assets — after a decade of under-investment driven by low real yields, geopolitical fragmentation is now rewarding industrial weight over software subscriptions.
Source: Goldman Sachs
Just Because...
This Shark Was Alive When Shakespeare Was Writing
The Greenland shark lives up to 500 years — making it the longest-lived vertebrate on Earth. A shark alive today may have been born before George Washington, before the US Constitution, before the printing press reached the Americas. It swims at 0.76 mph and has never once checked bond yields.
