If you look at the last 3 days in the VXX (commonly referred to as the ‘fear gauge’) you see that the last 3 days have not shown an ounce of volatility.

The VXX 3-day ATR is the lowest it’s been since the end of January (before it exploded higher). 

Does that sound like what you’re hearing on the news?

Tariff threats, missile attack threats, FBI raids looking for information about the President, etc…

Despite all this frighten news over the last week, the stock market has not shown any lasting signs of ‘fear’.

Big down days have been followed by big up days, and big gap down opens have been bid back up.

But elsewhere…

Gold has crept higher. It even tried to spike higher today.

Crude oil hit a 3 year high today amid heightened geopolitical tension news.

And TLT (a common safe haven in times of stress), has crept higher.

So why have stocks stopped falling?

Earnings season will begin shortly, and amid all the scary geopolitical news, the reaction to earnings is likely to be the trend you’ll want to follow.

With that in mind, I find it interesting that over the last week the IWM (Grandpa in Mish’s Modern Family) has shown the strongest leadership among the US stock indexes.

In fact, it quietly confirmed a new bull phase today.

If you have MarketGauge’s Triple Play indicators, I encourage you to look at IWM with them.

Don’t get too excited, IWM is unlikely to go very far without the other indexes following suit.

However, if the QQQ and IWM can join forces and break their multi-week ranges to the upside, then the stock bulls may come back.

Until then the stocks are in a range that that feels like the expression “hurry up and wait”.

S&P 500 (SPY) More consolidation with an inside day. Still needs to break 266.75. The tighter range to watch for support and resistance is 258-265.

Russell 2000 (IWM) Broke 154, but couldn’t close over it and didn’t have the other indexes helping. Levels to focus on are 154.30 and 148.