1. VIX Volatility Index Breaks Lower to Pre-Covid Levels
2. The Nonbank Financial System Controls $239 Trillion…..Half the World’s Financial Assets
Barrons-By Reshma Kapadia The nonbank financial system now controls $239 trillion, or almost half of the world’s financial assets, according to the Financial Stability Board. That’s up from 42% in 2008, and has doubled since the 2008-09 financial crisis. Postcrisis regulations helped shore up the nation’s biggest banks, but the restrictions that were imposed, coupled with years of ultralow interest rates, fueled the explosive growth of nonbank finance.
3. Deal Funding in AI Space
Madison Faller and Jonathan Linden JP Morgan Private Wealth
4. Sectors Drawdowns from Prior Highs
Equities: This chart shows sector drawdowns from prior highs.
Source: @bespokeinvest
5. More Data on Bank Insiders Record Buying of own Stocks
Zero Hedge Another measure of insider sentiment is the buyers-to-sellers ratio, which compares unique insider buying to unique insider selling. The average quarterly ratio for banks since 2011 has been 1.8 to 1, according to the report. So far in the second quarter, the ratio is at a record high of 14.7 to 1.
“Insiders in this group are expressing a strong belief that the regional-banking system as a whole is sound, that there’s not a danger of a wide-scale collapse,” Ben Silverman, director of research at VerityData, said in a Bloomberg interview.
6. Heavy Truck Sales Not Signaling Recession
by Calculated Risk on 6/02/2023 03:08:00 PM
Note: “Heavy trucks – trucks more than 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight.” Heavy truck sales declined sharply at the beginning of the pandemic, falling to a low of 308 thousand SAAR in May 2020.
Heavy truck sales were at 558 thousand SAAR in May, up from 548 thousand in April, and up 20% from 464 thousand SAAR in May 2022. Usually, heavy truck sales decline sharply prior to a recession. Sales were strong in May.
Found at Abnormal Returns Blog. www.abnormalreturns.com
7. The Best Performing Stocks Over the Last 30 Years
8. Investments in Solar Power Eclipse Oil for First Time
WSJ Will Horner More than $1 billion a day is expected to be invested in solar power this year, which is higher than total spending expected for new upstream oil projects, the IEA said in its annual World Energy Investment report. https://www.wsj.com/articles/investments-in-solar-power-eclipse-oil-for-first-time-c7bc6707#:~:text=More%20than%20%241%20billion%20a,annual%20World%20Energy%20Investment%20report.
Solar ETF bearish chart.
9. Estimated Office Space Occupancy
10. Common causes of bad decisions: Farnum Street Blog
1. Assumptions based on small sample sizes
2. Wanting the world to work the way we want rather than the way it does
3. Conforming to expectations/authority/group (social default)
4. Blindness to large trends (blind spots)
5. Not asking, “and then what?”