The MOVE Index And Outlying Events
In the investment world it should be no surprise to anyone anymore that outlying events actually happen with a decent amount of regularity. Looking at the past 12 years we have had the Asian Contagion, Russian Default, LTCM, .Com crash, housing crash, and the subsequent crash of everything else. Most of these are one in a gazillion year type events and yet they all happened inside of 12 years. Statistics while useful, are not able to perfectly model the real world.
So mixing stats with history let us look at the MOVE Index. The MOVE Index, essentially the bond markets VIX, typically trades between 128 and 79. Anything outside of those two lines is at least one standard deviation from the mean. As you can see in the chart below we are currently more than one standard deviation below the mean and look to be headed lower. (Click on chart to enlarge)
MOVE Index
Of course the interesting thing about the MOVE Index is not what level it is at but what tends to happen when it reaches certain levels. Essentially whenever the MOVE Index drops below one standard deviation something blows up. Apparently bond market investor complacency is a better gauge of “too complacent” than other volatility gauges.
Drops below the lower one standard deviation have preceded the following events
-First Gulf War
-Asian Contagion
-LTCM bailout/Russian Default
-.Com tech crash
-Housing/Credit crisis
While it is not a crystal ball, see the extended period below one standard deviation preceding the credit crisis, the MOVE index is still a good risk gauge with a solid track record of saying investors are too risk averse or that we are too complacent and therefore not really aware of the risks on the horizon. Consider this the yellow light, its not saying stop but its not saying go either.
Happy Trading,
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