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sinner macro update (click the little green arrow from above quote to see the previous charts).

First up is VIX. Positive signs here for the equity and short vol bulls, if you recall the last post my major concern was the elevated VIX becoming structural but it looks like vols have been crushed which provides the necessary foundation for either a "low volatility drift higher" like early/mid 2014 (good for equity bulls) or "low volatility consolidation" like early/mid 2015 (good for short equity vol bulls).

One does get the impression of "busting at the seams" from this chart (at least, my  ) and I would ask, given the state of the global economy are equity vols priced appropriately? Taking a look at the CBOE put/call ratios, equity put/call ratio is still elevated but total put/call ratio is coming off some.

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Breadth. Big change in participation since the last post, with the % of SP500 components above their 200SMA almost doubling (prev 27.6 cur 47.4). If the improvement carries into next month I might be adopting some more longs,but for me this is still on the fence. Other breadth measures are certainly weaker.

Also, consider how much higher participation was in 2013, that giant divergence is still sitting there.

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TED spread still on the highs, no narrowing here, still cautious about this becoming structural (elevated, but not above 0.5).

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Credit. Actually widened since the last measure before coming back in a little. The broader message is that we are still much narrower than the GFC, but the propensity towards widening is concerning. Not much in the way of "demand for risk" on show here.

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Industrial metals look like they are consolidating. Optimistically, we can say, "at least the freefall has been arrested for now", but on the other hand this doesn't really look like a base from which new demand is built (opinions appreciated there).

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