{"id":19101,"date":"2021-10-28T07:30:12","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T11:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/?p=19101"},"modified":"2021-10-28T07:30:12","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T11:30:12","slug":"this-looks-like-a-good-bet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/this-looks-like-a-good-bet\/","title":{"rendered":"This Looks Like a Good Bet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It seems that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/glossary\/#volatility\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">volatility<\/a> is being mispriced.<\/p>\n<p>I say this because the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/glossary\/#cboe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Volatility Index<\/a> (VIX) closed Tuesday at 16. That&rsquo;s near its lowest level for 2021. It&rsquo;s down about 35% from where it was trading just one month ago.<\/p>\n<p>That makes sense&hellip; sort of.<\/p>\n<p>After all, the S&amp;P 500 closed at its highest level ever on Tuesday. And, the VIX usually falls as the stock market rallies.<\/p>\n<p>But, it also doesn&rsquo;t make sense. We are in the midst of earnings season &ndash; when volatility tends to increase. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/trading-chart-pattens-can-be-dangerous\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(We talked about this in detail a couple of weeks ago here at <em>Market Minute.<\/em>)<\/a> We&rsquo;re also heading into a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announcement next week.<\/p>\n<p>And, this announcement could be HUGE&hellip;<\/p>\n<p>You see, FOMC representatives have been teasing about beginning a tapering process as early as November. They&rsquo;re not talking about raising interest rates&hellip; the Fed is still a long way away from doing that.<\/p>\n<p>But, the Fed has been talking about reducing the amount of bonds it purchases every month.<\/p>\n<p>If that happens, then it&rsquo;ll be the first step towards stopping the quantitative easing (QE) program since the Fed started it back in 2008 (QE is the introduction of new money into the money supply by a central bank). That&rsquo;ll be the first major change in Fed policy in 13 years.<\/p>\n<table bgcolor=\"#eeeeee\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"10\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border: 1px solid #D7D7D7; margin-bottom:20px;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding-left: 15px;padding-right: 15px; padding-top: 15px; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;font-size:17px; line-height:24px;\">\n<p align=\"center\"><strong>Free Trading Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Have you checked out Jeff&#8217;s free trading resources on his website? It contains a selection of special reports, training videos, and a full trading glossary to help kickstart your trading career &ndash; at zero cost to you. Just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">click here<\/a> to check it out.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>It&rsquo;s hard to imagine a scenario where that doesn&rsquo;t affect the stock market. Yet, the VIX is trading near its low of the year.<\/p>\n<p>That seems odd to me&hellip;<\/p>\n<p>Of course, we don&rsquo;t know for sure what the Fed is going to do or say when it makes its policy announcement next Wednesday. But, there is the possibility &ndash; and to me it seems like a very real possibility &ndash; of a major policy shift.<\/p>\n<p>And, the market doesn&rsquo;t seem to be discounting that yet.<\/p>\n<p>Volatility is cheap right now. It&rsquo;s as cheap as it has been all year. I expect it&rsquo;ll become more expensive as we head into next week&rsquo;s FOMC announcement.<\/p>\n<p>Traders will probably do well betting on a higher VIX between now and then.<\/p>\n<p>Best regards and good trading,<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/files.jeffclarktrader.com\/global\/signatures\/jeff-clark-signature.png\" alt=\"signature\"><\/p>\n<p>Jeff Clark<\/p>\n<p><!-- MAILBAG BEGIN --><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:center\">Reader Mailbag<\/h2>\n<p>Do you think there\u2019s a big chance that the Fed will implement a policy change? Do you regularly follow the FOMC meetings?<\/p>\n<p>Let us know your thoughts &ndash; and any questions you have &ndash; at <a href=\"mailto:feedback@jeffclarktrader.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">feedback@jeffclarktrader.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!-- MAILBAG END --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This announcement could be huge&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"service":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication":[10],"person":[7],"newsletter-type":[],"ticker":[],"class_list":["post-19101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-minute","publication-market-minute","person-jeff-clark"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19101"},{"taxonomy":"publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication?post=19101"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=19101"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-type?post=19101"},{"taxonomy":"ticker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ticker?post=19101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}