Real Vision Dissects Today’s Market Volatility
Your Real Vision Daily Briefing for September 3, 2020
- Holly Russel
- September 3, 2020
- 6:00 PM
Ash Bennington hosts Dave Floyd, founder of Aspen Trading, to discuss the levels he’s looking at after U.S. equity markets cratered today.
- S. equity markets cratered today, but inevitably these dips get bought and traders can be opportunistic buyers at these levels.
- It’s impossible to call the top, so traders should focus on being tactical, trading what’s on their screen, and managing their trades effectively.
- Rising implied volatility was signaling a potential drawdown in the past few weeks.
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Dave Floyd, founder of Aspen Trading, said he doesn’t plan to be a seller after the S&P cratered today; instead he thinks this may be the moment for opportunistic buying.
Floyd told Real Vision’s Daily Briefing that these dips inevitably get bought so he’s still going with his plan, and while 3430 represents a sticky area in terms of support, even the near-term worst case of 3386 or 3366 wouldn’t prompt him to become a seller at these levels.
Floyd expects an active fall after the Labor Day holiday and said he’s not trying to call the top of this market and is just going along with what’s happening in a tactical way: nibbling as prices move higher or lower and not making any grand bets.
At some point, he believes the rally will unravel, but said there are opportunities in the meantime and traders would do well to get strategic and trade what’s on their screen.
His advice to traders is to find the securities they want to trade and the levels where they want to be involved and then let the process take care of itself.
“Do the work, get out of the way, and manage the trade effectively,” he said. “Pick your sports, know where you’re going to get out, and size your trades properly.”
Overall, Floyd said it’s going to be an extremely interesting September and added that tomorrow’s nonfarm payroll report could add another dose of volatility to the market.
Roger Hirst also joined today’s Daily Briefing to share his take on the volatility in markets. He said rising implied volatility was signaling a potential drawdown in the past few weeks and we were on guard for this because there were indicators that something very unusual was happening.
Hirst said there is a risk that we get an air pocket in markets—not a major reversal but a sudden shock pullback from highs—and that this environment of volatility we are in is exceptional in many ways.
He’s watching the VIX versus the underlying market to understand what’s happening and said there’s a massive spread between what the market is doing and what people were prepared to pay.
“The VIX is saying the market is quite flighty even though the market itself is doing nothing and grinding to new highs,” he said. “Air pocket risk has been building over last couple of weeks.”
Hirst said he expects an air pocket rather than the beginning of a new bear market, especially because it’s likely that central banks will continue to intervene and market dynamics these days are based more on flows than fundamentals.
“It can obviously go further but you have to assume that central banks are still central and liquidity and flows are more important than fundamentals,” he said.