Below is a chart and brief excerpt from today's Early Look written by Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough.

Bull markets don’t have chronic volatility. Yes, like traffic in London, they have episodic and non-TRENDING spikes in volatility. There was a “cluster”, as Mandelbrot would have called it, of non-trending vol in both Gold and Treasuries, for example, in March.

As you can see in the Chart of The Day, US Equity Volatility initially spiked in the year 2000, then came in (sucking the perma bulls in, big time, in March-May of 2000), the ramped back up and remain elevated well into 2002 when the bear market ended.

Almost anyone can run money on the long side of Equities, in any country, when the equivalent  of the VIX is trending and trading in the range of 8-16. That would be the equivalent of driving a car in London without anyone to pickup/dropoff and/or having any risk to manage.

Not everyone runs money well in a developing or ongoing bear market (VIX 20-80 range).

CHART OF THE DAY: No Country For Long-Term Valuation Narratives  - Chart of the Day