Giving Me the Iran-Around Sue

Purely from a market perspective, we may need to gear up for another weekend of the Iran Runaround game, with threats of attacks on Israel supposedly imminent, which always seem to be postponed. 

As it stands now, the VIX and many stocks are taking the threat seriously, on top of the JPM earnings selloff with CEO Dimon sounding the alarm bells on lending and inflation. Still, the consensus amongst traders seems to be that there will certainly be a deescalation over the weekend, and even if there is a bad outcome in terms of war that folks will inevitably plow money back into equities. 

I must say that sentiment among veterans and relative newcomers alike at this juncture continues to assume that equities simply will not go down in a meaningful way, despite the red flags from valuation, breadth, positioning, macro, and the like. 

But with both the large banks and semiconductors clearly leading the market lower today we have actual evidence of some change in character--Those two sectors, especially, have been especially unflappable for many months on end now. This jives with the well-bid VIX and VIX ETFs, suddenly not such a laughingstock.