Reality sets in for the DOW...after yesterday's knee jerk reaction to the spot of much needed good news: the market corrected today. The dissection on the GDP number as mentioned yesterday must have hit investors in the eyeballs as I thought it might...the Dow lost 250 points today with some pretty massive selling. More reality: Credit quality is UP...and mortgage bonds are more and more attractive whether the feds are buying them or not. Today, investors fled to the relative safety of the bond and securities market as the reality that much of the numbers reported in consumer spending improvement, production improvement, inventory reductions etc were driven by government spending that will have to cease at some point. The FNMA 4.5% picked up 41 basis points in the session. Gold is back down to $1040 an ounce...yikes. Oil is still under $80/barrel VIX...or Volatility Index: what is it? It is a number based on the types of investment bets people are making and is thought to indicate the current "fear factor" of investors. When the VIX is up...things tend to be more volatile. Yesterday I mentioned that it was creeping up and today it jumped by 23%...the largest jump in months. Have a great weekend!
Cheers,
Chad |
