markets have they been too quiet lately.

Have they been too quiet?

This is the markets, a new series from Goldman Sachs exchanges.

Hi, I'm Sam Grobart.

Today, I'm joined by Sharon Bell from our research group in London.

We're going to talk about the common markets, European stocks,

and her insights from the latest round of earnings reports.

Sharon, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you, Sam.

So Sharon, U.S. equity volatility has been hovering around the lowest level since the end of 2021, according to the VIX Index.

Why do you think things are so subdued?

I think partly it's because the action has been in the last year or so on inflation and interest

rates it's been the Fed that's been doing a lot of the work in this last 12 months rather than

so much on gross risks and therefore less on equities more on rates.

Generally to get a sharp spike in equity volatility you need to be looking at a

recession quite near term and so far with the emphasis on so far growth has been okay

That said clearly the economy is slowing and we don't think equity volatility will stay this low.

A little bit depends on the stocks within the market and the US market's quite

concentrated in those big cap tech stocks that we all know about and I think they've

been doing quite well and that's cushion volatility as well.

It does seem like there has been a little bit of a push pull hasn't there been between those bigger

as you were just describing those sort of mega cap tech stocks as opposed to perhaps other parts like say some regional banks right?

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