And You Thought The Correlation Bubble Popped

Andrew Wilkinson submits: XRT – SPDR S&P Retail ETF – A massive chunk of put options purchased in the March contract on the retail exchange-traded fund, which generally mirrors the performance of the S&P Retail Select Industry index, paints a near-term bearish picture.

By Richard Shaw (QVM Group): Dividend investors should expect middle of the road returns, and pure high quality and pure low volatility investors should expect to be near the bottom, compared to key US broad stock indexes and sector indexes in 2013.

By Gary Gordon: Until recently, investors showed little interest in hedging against a potential collapse in the S&P 500. Some might have even described the environment as complacent with the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) spending most of the year in the “mid-teens.”

* Investment bank bet against CIO in derivatives market * Bank said to have discussed merging opposing trade books * Opposing bets could fuel claim JPM is too big to manage

By Diffusion:The Technology SPDR ETF (XLK) is ranked at the top among sector ETFs and that indicates the economy is likely to expand on its own.

By Markos Kaminis (Wall St. Greek): As market trade got under way Friday, the drivers of the ship were clear.

By Colin Lokey:There will be no shortage of fanfare and scrutiny this Friday when JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) reports second quarter earnings. Investors will be watching closely to try and discern the extent of the damage caused by the now famous London Whale trade. For Jamie Dimon, it is just as well that the public focus squarely on the direct consequences of the ill-fated derivatives bet.

By Colin Lokey:I have published two articles over the past few weeks advising investors to either steer clear of JPMorgan (JPM) shares or bet against the stock via short sales or put options.