War has pushed global markets into the danger zone
Correlations within the US stock market and between asset classes are rising.
Low correlations have been one of the dominant features of this bull market.
That is, the S&P 500’s heavyweights have tended to march to the beat of their own drummers, despite seemingly having a common critical success factor (whether their AI spending binges will pay off). Low correlations help tamp down volatility at the index level — when one stock is down, another’s up. When volatility is suppressed, there are fewer scary daily drawdowns that inspire panic and send the index screaming even lower.
Tuesday’s rout is the most meaningful challenge to the low-correlation environment that’s been reestablished over the past few months. And that’s not only true for what’s within the stock market, but also between different asset classes.
There’s nowhere to hide (except the US dollar, really). This is poised to be the first session since February 27, 2025, in which the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, SPDR Gold Shares ETF, and iShares Bitcoin Trust are down at least 1% with the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF also negative.
There have only been five sessions like this since IBIT’s inception in early 2024.
One-month correlations — the extent to which the S&P 500’s constituents are expected to move in the same direction, derived from options prices — are spiking, on track for their highest close since November 20 (the Q4 bottom for US stocks).
