A shocking anecdote via Jason Goepfert at SentimenTrader:
We’re doubtless seeing a lot of indications of apathy and pessimism at the moment, but what we have not seen is panic. Maybe that’s due to “everyone” looking for the same kinds of signs of capitulation. I had a subscriber email me an anecdote yesterday about a meal he had on Tuesday. His waiter told him not to trust the rally because the VIX hasn’t hit 30 yet. That wasn’t the waiter’s brilliant insight, though…he had heard it from the Albanian dish-hand. Ugh.
I honestly don’t even know what to do with this. “Blue Horseshoe loves a 30 VIX,” you know? On the one hand, if an Albanian “dish-hand” approaches me to discuss put-call ratios, I’ll gladly listen. At least more than I would if Bob Pisani were discussing the same. But that’s probably not what’s going on here: rather, as we’ve discussed before, it sure seems like capitulation-seekers are focusing on the the VIX to the exclusion of all else.
That probably doesn’t matter at all. It’s not as if the VIX is one of the variables in a quantum state. Still, it’s getting to the point where the more attention the VIX gets, the more we want to be suspicious. We don’t know if that analogy in the title of this post is true, but you have to wonder.