Fear and volatility are likely to strike the stock market in August

collected by :Haron Adler

as mentioned in Commercial hedgers (considered the "smart money") have been increasing their bullish VIX bets (see bottom graph of chart). S&P 500 risk vs. rewardSince the VIX reflects implied volatility of S&P 500 index options, it makes sense to see if the S&P 500 SPX+0.46% shows tell-tale signs of a bigger drop. The S&P 500 is now caught between a (massive?) It would take a good close below 2,800 points to invalidate the bullish pattern. A closer look at the S&P 500 breakout pattern, the bearish divergences and a bearish Nasdaq COMP+0.12% setup is available here.

The stock market is seeing abnormally large moves this earnings season — Goldman Sachs explains why, and how traders can capitalize

Getty Images / Spencer PlattIf you've noticed that stock prices have been swinging more than usual this earnings season, it's not just your imagination playing tricks on you. The 252 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported so far have seen an average absolute move of 3.9%, according to data compiled by Goldman Sachs . That's well above the mean fluctuation for both the past eight quarters (3.2%) and the previous four (3.3%), the firm finds. Fogertey & Co. go as far as to make four single-stock recommendations meant to help traders make a killing over the rest of earnings season. All of the quotes below are attributable to the derivatives team at Goldman.

Technology companies fall again, sending stock market tumbling

as informed in Tech companies have done far better than the rest of the market in recent years, but they've fallen after Facebook and Twitter both reported weak user growth in the second quarter. Microsoft and Alphabet slumped Monday, and Facebook, Twitter and Netflix have all fallen at least 20% from their record highs this month.

The stock market just experienced the most seismic shift from growth to value since Lehman Brothers, says Nomura

So far this week, the S&P 500 Growth index XX:SP500G+0.32% is down 1.2%, while, the S&P 500 Value index XX:SP500V+0.64% is up 0.2% over the same period. To be sure, over the longer-term, growth has been a steady outperformer, gaining 9.4% year-to-date, compared against action in value names that have left the S&P 500 value index little changed. In a Monday note, Morgan Stanley said the outperformance by growth had it poised for an eventual reversal, as MarketWatch's Ryan Vlastelica writes. "The rotation I think isn't necessarily growth to value, it's about selling the winners and that [happens to involve] growth stocks," he told MarketWatch. However, so-called growth names were bouncing back higher again, with the Nasdaq rebounding on Tuesday to finish up 0.6% in Tuesday action, helping buoy the broad market.

China loses status as world's second-largest stock market amid trade war with US

Chinese shares ceded their ranking as the second-largest stock market in the world to Japan, the Financial Times reported on Friday. Chinese stocks were worth a total of $6.09 trillion at the market close on Thursday, the FT said, referring to figures from Bloomberg. That compared to the $6.16 trillion market value of the Japanese shares at the end of the Thursday trading session. China's market surpassed Japan in market value in November 2014 to become the world's second-largest, the FT said. The U.S. stock market, which continues to be the world's largest, was valued at $31 trillion at the end of Thursday, it added.