Arabic version: المتداولون يستوعبون إشارة وارش مع هبوط مؤشر VIX إلى أدنى مستوى سنوي

According to Cnbc, stock traders appeared broadly comfortable with a more hawkish interest-rate outlook after Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh spoke at the Jackson Hole symposium. Fed funds futures tracked by CME Group put the odds of a rate increase at the September meeting at nearly 60%, up from 35% on Thursday.

The Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, fell as low as 14.1 after Warsh’s speech, its lowest level of the year. The index measures the price of 30-day options on the S&P 500. The S&P 500 was down three-tenths of a percent at midday as Nvidia shares gave back some earnings-related gains, roughly half the approximately 60-basis-point move options pricing had implied for the session.

U.S. equities also held up better than bitcoin and gold, each of which fell at least 2.5%. Ben Emons, managing director at Highline Asset Management, said a Federal Reserve that remains vigilant on inflation without hiking aggressively is viewed positively for the economy and supports the bullish case for stocks.

However, longer-dated options indicate that investors see more uncertainty further out. Mandy Xu, Cboe’s head of derivatives market intelligence, said uncertainty around inflation and the path of rates is affecting longer-term equity volatility. The spread between six-month and one-month S&P 500 options prices stood in the 96th percentile of the past year, according to Cboe data. Late-February VIX futures were priced around 21, versus just under 16.9 for the active contract, according to ThinkOrSwim data.

James Perry, founder and chief investment officer of Perry International Capital Partners, said the Fed was still technically in easing mode. He added that lower oil prices would further reduce inflation expectations.