It doesn't pay to worry about the unprecedented market calm.
As U.S. stocks trade at fresh highs and volatility across assets is so subdued it's touching near-record lows, hedging seems like a luxury. It's getting harder to justify coughing up money for cheap protection that ends up seeming overpriced in the face of rare, and quickly reversing, selloffs.
With the French election out of the way, investors have stopped paying what had been a five-month high in the cost of insuring against declines in the S&P 500 Index. The price of hedging against a 5% drop in the gauge over the next month is 36% below its five-year average. Meanwhile the Bank of America's Skew Index, which measures demand for hedging against large swings in global equities and currencies, is at its lowest since 2013.
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