Nomura: $150 Billion Of Forced Selling Friday

Late on Wednesday, with stocks at all time highs and not a cloud in the market's careless sky, Nomura's cross asset guru Chalie McElligott looked at the unprecedented collapse of realized volatility, and said that that “Dead Calm” in realized vol indicated an imminent reversal, especially when coupled with the "peak grabbiness/AI euphoria" In the vol space.

Well, less than 48 hours later, and following the worst selloff in stocks since April (one sparked yet again by a comment from Trump), not to mention the biggest liquidation event in crypto history, we are there, and as the Nomura strategist writes in his follow up note published moments ago, that what we are seeing right now is "a taste of the reason we’ve been pitching VIX Upside (25d10d CS to be exact) as the preferred space for investor hedging", which McElligott correctly warns was set-up to be a convex move higher”, and indeed, look at the VVIX move go, surging to 110 right now, +13 vols, as “Vol of Vol” is signaling a touch of “pucker” for those Short VIX Optionality.