Markets
markets
Luke Kawa

Forget the “Great Unwind.” Meet the “Great Chase”

Stocks are surging, and overall volatility in the equity market is down, adding to the profits of traders who wagered that market angst would be short lived.

But Scott Nations, longtime volatility guru and president of Nations Indexes, flags one place where volatility is actually creeping higher: in bets that the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 will go up over the next seven days and next month (as judged by his CallDex, QQQ CallDex, and IWM CallDex indexes). These track out-of-the-money call options, which benefit from rising stock prices.

Implied volatility is a proxy for how much an option is in demand. Loosely speaking, when implied volatility goes up it means people are willing to pay more for that option because they think the underlying asset has (in this case) more potential room to run to the upside.

In other words, people who were worried last week about a massive unwind of leveraged positions taking the market down are now worried about missing out on another big leg higher as equities rebound with a vengeance.

The chase for more gains is on.

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J. Edward Moreno

SpaceX gets a wave of bullish ratings from Wall Street analysts

SpaceX received more than a dozen positive analyst calls on Tuesday — including from major Wall Street banks — as they initiate coverage on Elon Musk’s space and AI company.

SpaceX went public on June 12 at a $2.2 trillion valuation, the largest debut in history. While the company hasn’t yet posted a profit, it seems to have convinced Wall Street that it will get there and grow its valuation on the way.

Of the at least 17 analysts that gave a rating on Tuesday, all but one gave it a “buy” or “outperform” rating. MoffettNathanson was "neutral."

The ratings come as SpaceX joined the Nasdaq 100 index, a benchmark tech-heavy basket of companies that underpins millions of portfolios. The inclusion adds built-in demand for the stock from index funds and ETFs.

Still, SpaceX fell more than 5% on Tuesday amid a broader sell-off, and is currently effectively flat from its opening price of $150 a share.

Luke Kawa
7/2/26
US job growth falls far short of estimates in June; unemployment rate unexpectedly dips to 4.2%

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7/1/26
Meta surges on report it’s starting a cloud business to sell excess AI compute

The story of the hyperscalers in 2026 has largely been “the beatings will continue until the cash flow outlook improves;” this could help change the story for Meta. Or not.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visits U.S. Capitol for Senate meetings

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