Wall Street’s Fear Gauge Is Acting Up. It May Signal Trouble

(Bloomberg) -- At this point, most investors probably just want the year to be over to book their gains -- especially now that the Cboe Volatility Index is behaving in a way that’s preceded stock losses in the past.

The VIX, also known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” jumped 16% on Monday and was up another 2.3% to 16.23 as of 8:15 a.m. Tuesday in New York. The S&P 500 Index remained less than a percent away from its record high.

Citigroup Global Markets Inc. strategists William O’Donnell and Edward Acton saw the action as “very interesting,” noting that the VIX experienced a “bullish hammer reversal pattern against major horizontal support.” In other words, a technical indicator shows the gauge is likely to keep rising.

That happened just after the S&P 500 and VIX, which move in opposite directions about 80% of the time, rose in tandem for two straight weeks for the first time since early May. Back then, an almost 7% slump in the S&P 500 followed in the next month.

There are several events this week that may be spurring investors to hedge: rate decisions by the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank, and the Dec. 15 date the Trump Administration is set to impose tariffs on another $160 billion of imports from China.

“The world is massively long equities in expectation that an interim trade deal will appear,” Jeffrey Halley, senior market strategist at Oanda Asia Pacific Pte., said in an email Tuesday. “That has yet to happen and there is clearly increasing nervousness that it might not before Dec. 15 or even the end of the year,” and probably as a result, a lot of downside protection is being bought.

Investors looking for levels on the VIX...

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