The stock market has been fairly tranquil this past month—the least volatile 30-day period in more than two decades.
Like the calm before the storm, the market awaits the decision on possible interest rate hikes, which could come as soon as September. That, coupled with easy global monetary policy and a lull in trading during the summer, has brought trading volatility down to historic levels. The S&P 500 only moved 0.5% in either direction within the past five days, its smallest stretch since fall 1995.
But low trading volumes are causing some to worry that a storm may be soon approaching, the Wall Street Journal reports. “Last week and the week before, you had to make sure your machine was actually on because it was flashing so infrequently,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategist Jared Woodard told the Journal. [WSJ]
