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"Calm Before The Storm?" Dow's 2015 Range Crashes To Lowest Ever

Tyler Durden's picture




 

The Dow's volatility is dead... long live The Dow's volatility.

 

2015 is now officially the least volatile (lowest trading range) in stock market history...

 

After 157 trading days, the Dow has traded in a 6.44% range - the tightest range EVER!

Source: @RyanDetrick

As Nassim Taleb recently wrote... This is the calm before the storm...

Western countries are increasingly displaying symptoms of looming instability as described by Nassim Taleb, the author of the The Black Swan, ever since the publication of an essay written with Gregory Treverton entitled “The Calm Before the Storm.”

In their essay, Taleb and Treverton highlight five characteristics that could help identify states that - while appearing stable on the surface - may actually be quite fragile.

“Fragility”, they write, “is aversion to disorder”.

The five characteristics they view as major factors in instability are:

  • - centralised decision making,
  • - lack of economic diversity
  • - high levels of debt and leverage
  • - absence of political variability
  • - lack of track record in surviving shocks

With regards to centralised decision making the article points to the autocratic Arab states which while appearing strong on the surface quickly succumbed to the “Arab Spring” uprisings before degenerating into chaos - albeit compounded by external influences.

“Although centralization reduces deviations from the norm, making things appear to run more smoothly, it magnifies the consequences of those deviations that do occur. It concentrates turmoil in fewer but more severe episodes, which are disproportionately more harmful than cumulative small variations.

 

In other words, centralization decreases local risks, such as provincial barons pocketing public funds, at the price of increasing systemic risks, such as disastrous national-level reforms.

 

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Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:25 | 6440295 Rainman
Rainman's picture

Grab your socks and drop your cocks cuz the year ain't over yet.

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:32 | 6440317 TrustbutVerify
TrustbutVerify's picture

I thought it was "drop your socks..." etc. 

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:51 | 6440399 Oldballplayer
Oldballplayer's picture

Well, if I am going to grab my socks, I have to let go of what is in my hand.

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 16:20 | 6440553 Tom Servo
Tom Servo's picture

in my neck of the woods its "drop your cocks and grab your socks" meaning stop fucking around and lets move...

 

well played...

 

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 16:36 | 6440635 negative rates
negative rates's picture

Well said too.

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 16:23 | 6440569 Implied Violins
Implied Violins's picture

Watching porn and clicking on ZH go hand-in-hand after all...

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 16:42 | 6440659 BandGap
BandGap's picture

Or something in hand.

Whatever.

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:33 | 6440322 MD
MD's picture

I'm not sure what that saying means, but I like it.

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:56 | 6440424 BasqueRand
BasqueRand's picture

Oooo.  I have just the sock for this scenario.

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 16:39 | 6440647 Tallest Skil
Tallest Skil's picture

As Billy Mays once said, "Hold your dick steady and get your credit card ready."

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 16:42 | 6440663 BandGap
BandGap's picture

Shut your whore mouth - Billy Mays

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 17:56 | 6440927 Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer's picture

Who said this?

I discovered my wife in bed with another man, and I was crushed. So I said, 'Get off me, you two!'

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 21:28 | 6441815 gregga777
gregga777's picture

"Drop you cocks and grab your socks! Get out of those racks, maggots!"

That's how I remember the words, anyway.
USMC MCRD Parris Island, ca: early-1970's

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:34 | 6440325 KnuckleDragger-X
KnuckleDragger-X's picture

Thank god there ain't no manipulation going on.......

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:34 | 6440326 Osmium
Osmium's picture

Centrally planned market

 

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:34 | 6440328 Hype Alert
Hype Alert's picture

It is amazing that everything around us is crumbling and we're just sitting and watching to see what's behind door #3.

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:44 | 6440368 Bill of Rights
Bill of Rights's picture

" We have such sites to show you "

Hellraiser: PInhead

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:48 | 6440390 Spitzer
Spitzer's picture

stop watching and drop your cock. Didn't you get the memo >?

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:48 | 6440391 Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's picture

Its Yellen and the Hildabeast having sex naked.

Talk about being short.

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 21:24 | 6441800 gregga777
gregga777's picture

That's a truly hideous image to have burned into one's memory!

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:40 | 6440352 silverer
silverer's picture

Challenges lie ahead.  A good time to take stock of yourself, not just your stocks. 

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 16:27 | 6440590 Implied Violins
Implied Violins's picture

This is when I'm glad I only own socks.

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 15:47 | 6440388 MASTER OF UNIVERSE
MASTER OF UNIVERSE's picture

With my boot on the neck(s) of the Oligarchs, and the DOW, I stand in victory listening to their collective obfuscation. It will not be long before they are all scrambling for cover. Moreover, storms eventually pass, but an economic apocalypse is not just your average 'storm' that can be reflexively discounted by the previously insulated Oligarchs, or their progeny.

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 16:15 | 6440533 WTFRLY
WTFRLY's picture

Yes, it's for real this time. Too many things slowing, crashing.

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 16:17 | 6440544 pebblewriter
pebblewriter's picture

Noticed the same thing last Friday and went back to check.  The last time the spread between the 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200-day moving averages on SPX was this narrow (22 points) was on January 3, 2008. Less than three weeks later, SPX had fallen 12.2%.  And, of course, it fell another 42% before all the fun was over.

http://pebblewriter.com/coiling/

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 16:22 | 6440568 viator
viator's picture

The centrally planned stock market will go up forever! QEinfinity!

Tue, 08/18/2015 - 17:47 | 6440884 Hankster
Hankster's picture

Central Planning - because it worked so well for the workers' paradise that was the former Soviet Union. The irony is just to die for. And many will.

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