I love it when analysts use standard deviations. JP Morgan reckons yen carry trade unwind was a 5 stdev event: that's something that would happen 1/4 of a day since 1900 (0.0000006% of the time). They think the overall reaction a 7 stdev event, =~never happens

Some evidence that dispersion trade contributed to Monday's massive VIX spike, courtesy of Rocky Fishman at Asym500:

Last week's market panic could directly affect investor psychology, influencing whether the cracks we just saw turn into chasms, James Mackintosh writes on.wsj.com/3yHJcbm

tell me more about the value of childless cat ladies

Word of the day is ‘Podsnappian’ (from Charles Dickens): blinkered, self-congratulatory, and convinced that everyone else should see things the way you do.

Even the longest-term thinkers need to worry about extreme prices. No measure is perfect, but three are flashing red for stocks, James Mackintosh writes on.wsj.com/3M6bPCn

Mostly behavioural finance, but also Taylor Swift vs New Order wsj.com/finance/taylor…

Lots of great-sounding investment offerings out there to avoid. Jason Zweig looks into one here. tl;dr: "If it sounds too good to be true, it definitely is" wsj.com/finance/invest… via The Wall Street Journal

Quick Streetwise on what counts as a value stock - including Broadcom at 27x forward earnings: These ETFs Thought Broadcom Was Cheap. It Just Got Cheaper. wsj.com/livecoverage/j… via @wsj

Boomer PM Summary should be mandatory heading for every Bernstein report going forward

Streetwise: What Could Have Changed to Justify a Half-Point Cut? Inflation past two months was in line with Fed's last dotplot - and so just one quarter-point cut this year. wsj.com/livecoverage/f… via @wsj

The Federal Reserve cut rates by 50 bps. The median projection has two more 25 bps rate cuts in 2024, for a total of 100 bps this year. Fed governor Miki Bowman dissented in favor of a smaller 25 bps cut. It's the first dissent by a *governor* since 2005.

Powell really should have broken into song: Que sera, sera 🎶

Powell purple is a bad tie choice for TV

Markets are embracing the spirit of dovishness following the Fed’s supersize rate cut, writes James Mackintosh on.wsj.com/3ziCidd on.wsj.com/3ziCidd

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! wsj.com/world/china/ch…

funny turn of phrase from Powell's latest speech: "Broader economic conditions also set the table for further disinflation." Never heard it used outside dinner prep or Word formatting