Volatility Measure Close to a Bearish Turning Point

The stock market’s masters have zeroed in on a few stocks to help foster the illusion that the aging bull is in excellent health. If you’ve been watching the shares of Boeing, AAPL and Tesla in particular you could get the impression buyers are unstoppable.  With cyclical forces powerfully supporting the uptrend at the moment, the Masters of the Universe are training much of their firepower on hard cases that have gotten bad publicity in recent months. Any gains in these stocks is effectively being banked against their next downturn, when investors will shed their amnesia and suddenly remember all of the bad news. If there is evidence the buying spree is near an end, however, it can be found most easily in the chart of VXXB, an S&P volatility index that is close to an important downside target at 24.50. If there’s a sharp bounce from that number as we should expect, then an important top in the stock market is close.