Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Lunch, our afternoon update on today's market action news and analysis.

Good afternoon. Today is Monday, August 12th, and I I'm your host Kim Khan. Our top story is so far.

Growth stocks are back on the front foot, rates are edging lower, and volatility is

plunging, but is this the calm before the inflation storm? The Nasdac is up about 0.8% leading

the S&P 500 and the struggling Dow. The Vix, also known as the Fear Gage, is sinking about 7% back below 20 after

rocketing to 40 last Monday in what Goldman Sachs called a historic

volatility shock. And Goldman's derivative desk says investors can expect markets to continue to be choppy for another week or so.

While 2008 and 2020 brought us more volatility, Monday, August 5th, was historic in the sense that we've never seen the Vicks move

more than 40 points in one day not even close they said going back through the

volatility index's history through 1990 when you're witnessing the Vicks whip around by 10 to 20 points, let alone 40,

you're generally seeing SPX trade in a 5 to 10 percent interday band.

We didn't even breach 3 percent SPX trading range Monday, 930 to 4. This was a

volatility market shock, not a stock market shock. Check out our story for great

chart on this historic move.

Chopping conditions will remain until the markets get through the August 21st Vix Exspiry, they added.

This Vix options expiry is as important as ever given how many options are now

outstanding across the market. Getting through this event will help free up

balance sheet for market participants and in turn help boost liquidity in the

market. There were few macro catalysts today, but that could change quickly with the latest

PPI report out pre-market Tuesday and the CPI on Wednesday.

For investors looking to hedge, Goldman's trading desk suggests a rather

pecan't safe haven. The Magnificent seven stocks, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon,

...