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One Measure of Investor Worry Just Hit Its Highest Level Ever

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Fundstrat's Tom Lee: Equity Market Shifting Toward Value

By
Joseph Ciolli
Updated on

Anxiety may have been hard to locate in the U.S. equity market before yesterday. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

One measure of expected turbulence, the relative cost of options that pay when stocks decline versus those that appreciate when they rise, jumped to the highest level ever recorded just before the S&P 500 Index buckled on Tuesday. Call it the new normal for investors conditioned to expect the worst when it comes to politics, the economy and corporate earnings.