Stocks Rip Higher As Volatility Gets Crushed

 | Sep 24, 2021 01:03AM ET

Stocks ripped higher on Thursday with the Bull back in control. Never mind FedEx's (NYSE:FDX) miserable quarter, forget the weaker than expected flash PMI–with a horrible commentary, forget about Nike's (NYSE:NKE) miss on revenues and weaker than expected guidance. Everything is great! At least, that is what I heard from the people on TV today.

The reason the market rose today is simple: implied volatility was crushed, AKA the VIX dropping like a stone. The VIX ripped higher on Friday of last week and Monday of this week. Now that two event risks have been “apparently” removed, the volatility sellers are back, pushing the VIX down and pushing stocks up.

You can see the shift in the term structure from Monday until yesterday. It was a massive move lower in the spot market.