The Moon Shot.

Well, it’s time for another clip from Semi-Pro.

If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor, because despite being overtly cheesy, the R-rating and accompanying profanity make it one of the most underrated Will Ferrell movies in history.

Will’s character (Jackie Moon), is the owner of a failing ABA team and at one point, as part of the halftime entertainment for the handful of fans in attendance, he offers to pay $10,000 to anyone who can hit a shot from the other side of the court. He claims the contest is sponsored by a beer company, but it isn’t which means that on the off chance someone makes the shot, he won’t be able to pay. Of course the shot is all but impossible, just like going long vol. and making money was all but impossible.

 

So here’s the XIV/SVXY crowd pretending like they can afford it if the “impossible” happens and sarcastically cheering on the long vol. crowd…

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to welcome this man, who’s going to attempt the impossible, he’s going to go long vol. Come on everybody cheer this guy on as he bets on the impossible…”

 

“NO!” “He stepped on the line.”

The story of the day was XIV, which announced the unthinkable, an “acceleration event” following Monday’s “impossible” 100% move higher in the VIX and the accompanying collapse in everyone’s favorite retail short vol. product after the bell:

They tried to reopen that piece of shit, but you know – it’s over. Here’s the chart:

Here’s SVXY:

The VIX spiked to 50 at one point and had it somehow stayed there, it would have been the highest close since March 2009:

Mercifully, it didn’t:

Incidentally, your guess is as good as anyone’s when it comes to exactly what was going on there near the open.

This was a fuckin’ wild day for stocks with the Dow careening 500 points in either direction before ultimately closing sharply higher:

This ended up being the best day for the S&P since November of 2016. Here’s a look at the MTD craziness:

One more notable from yesterday, vol-of-vol hit a record:

Don’t blame the machines for yesterday… says Cliff:

https://twitter.com/CliffordAsness/status/960849578735161344

CBOE nosedived on apparent concerns about what the future holds for volatility trading:

Just like, the retail short vol. trade is over. On the bright side for the rest of us, the VIX ETP rebalance risk is obviously lower now. If you want the full post mortem on this, see these posts:

• Nightmare: Goldman Explains How VIX ETPs Activated The Doom Loop On Monday
• The Demons Were Real: Monday’s VIX Carnage And The 13-Sigma Event

Mnuchin was on the tape all day long (he was testifying on Capitol Hill):

• MNUCHIN: U.S. DEBT PLAN HASN’T IMPACTED MARKET `AT THE MOMENT
• MNUCHIN SAYS HE, TRUMP VERY FOCUSED ON CURRENCY MANIPULATION
• MNUCHIN SAYS CORRECT TO SAY HE BACKS STRONG DOLLAR
• MNUCHIN SAYS IN LONG-TERM STRONG DOLLAR IN U.S. BEST INTEREST
• MNUCHIN SAYS ALGORITHMIC TRADING HAD IMPACT ON MARKET MOVES
• MNUCHIN SAYS NOT OVERLY CONCERNED ABOUT MARKET VOLATILITY
• MNUCHIN SAYS STOCK MARKETS WORKING VERY WELL

Also, this:

wtf. lol.
TRUMP: `GOING TO GO THROUGH HELL' TO MAKE IMMIGRATION CHANGES

— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) February 6, 2018

The dollar has stabilized over the past couple of sessions:

Europe was bloody. It was the worst day for the DAX since Brexit. German equities have fallen for seven consecutive sessions:

The Stoxx 600 closed off the lows, but was still down 2.4% and as you can see from the following chart, it is in free fall and may be oversold from a technical perspective:

At one point, the VStoxx spiked to 32:

Overnight, it was of course a bloodbath in Asia. Japan dove 5% and the Nikkei fell into correction territory:

The Hang Seng plunged 5.1%, in the largest single-day selloff since the aftermath of the yuan devaluation in August 2015:

While mainland shares had their worst day since early 2016:

Finally, for your moment of zen, here’s the President explaining how he’d “love” to see a government shutdown:

“I’d love to see a shutdown if we don’t get this stuff taken care of,” Trump says regarding immigration policies. “The world is laughing at us because they can’t believe these policies.” pic.twitter.com/sjqGt101Ab

— Bloomberg Originals (@bbgoriginals) February 6, 2018