{"id":1476549,"date":"2024-07-10T20:40:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T00:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1476549"},"modified":"2024-07-10T20:40:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T00:40:00","slug":"stock-fragility-is-the-highest-on-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/stock-fragility-is-the-highest-on-record\/1476549\/","title":{"rendered":"Stock Fragility Is The Highest On Record"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">Stock Fragility Is The Highest On Record<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p>One way to describe the recent action in tech stocks (and Mag7 in particular) is one constant, unyielding meltup triggered by a short and gamma squeeze, record stock buybacks and FOMO among the momentum-chasing retail. Another way is to paraphrase what BofA&#8217;s derivatives team called it in its latest Equity Volatility note (available to pro subs in the usual place): unprecedented fragility.<\/p>\n<p>As BofA&#8217;s Benjamin Bowler writes, large cap tech continues to exhibit fragile price action, as last week saw positive delivery numbers from Tesla power it to a ~25% return in 3 days, which included a 10.2% 1-day rally (4x its trailing 1m realized vol). However, with the move on this known catalyst being twice as large as the straddle cost last week, <strong>options drastically underpriced the fragility risk. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This occurrence is not an isolated one, and was only the most recent outlier move in large cap tech, <strong>with the likes of Apple, Oracle and Alphabet recently seeing close to their most extreme 1d vol-adjusted moves over the last 5 years. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/TSLA%20rally%20fragility.jpg?itok=ITv-2i66\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As BofA further notes, <strong>earnings moves in tech within the largest 50 S&amp;P stocks have been more extreme than straddle costs over 60% of the time this year so far, <\/strong>especially so since May (with 8 of 10 earnings straddles breaking even).<\/p>\n<p>This continuation of unstable price action underscores a key observation that the bank&#8217;s generally cautious derivatives team has made in recent weeks: <strong>single stock fragility is rising, particularly around earnings &amp; other events that provide some degree of forward guidance <\/strong>(see Volatility suggests AI isn\u2019t a bubble\u2026yet and 18-Jun-24 GEVI). Indeed, as the next chart shows, <strong>the average magnitude of fragility events in the largest stocks of the S&amp;P is currently at its most extreme since 1992, <\/strong>which means the instability of single-stock dynamics is off the charts and once the current meltup fizzles, the hangover will be brutal.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/record%20fragility.jpg?itok=RJXpC3Ri\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Aside from this, and despite the repeated signs of fragility, <strong>options markets &#8211; particularly in large cap tech &#8211; continue to underprice fragility risk going into events. <\/strong>In the case of Tesla last week, its move on Tuesday (02-Jul-24) alone was almost twice as big as the cost of its straddles on the day prior to announcement (which was a pre-telegraphed catalyst).<\/p>\n<p>More generally, as noted above, tech companies in the Top 50 largest stocks of the S&amp;P have realized bigger moves on earnings than the cost of their respective weekly straddles more than 60% of the time this year, with the 10 largest tech companies seeing this hit rate reach 70%.\u00a0 These realized moves have been <strong>particularly extreme since May this year, with 8 out of 10 moves being larger than the straddle cost.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/top%2010%20tech%20straddles.jpg?itok=Slyl-piQ\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hence, as the next earnings season approaches, and given the tendency to underprice risk, BofA&#8217;s derivatives desk is urging clients to use options directionally to navigate single stock risk over coming weeks. The combination of a rise in idiosyncratic risk and the highest large cap stock fragility in 30+ years makes using the limited risk and asymmetric profile of optionality especially prudent, in BofA&#8217;s view.<\/p>\n<p><em>More in the full <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/scl\/fi\/yi57rb4est30cwvgyymvp\/BofA_Global-Equity-Volatility-Insights-Tech-still-fragile-and-options-underprice-risk_20240709.pdf?rlkey=bxmzvs313o025nkxho2h4dzjn&amp;dl=0\">BofA&#8217;s note <\/a>available to pro subs.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>      <span class=\"field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden\"><a title=\"View user profile.\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/users\/tyler-durden\" class=\"username\">Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden\">Wed, 07\/10\/2024 &#8211; 16:40<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u200b<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/markets\/stock-fragility-highest-record\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/markets\/stock-fragility-highest-record<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stock Fragility Is The Highest On Record One way to describe the recent action in tech stocks (and Mag7 in particular) is one constant, unyielding&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1476550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1476549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1476549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1476550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1476549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1476549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1476549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}