By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

That is how this week felt on many levels. Maybe it was because I was travelling, so I wasn’t staring at my screens every minute of the day, but I think it was more than that.

There was no shortage of opportunities to feel smart or stupid as the days went by (unless you are on Twitter selling your trading signals, in which case you apparently nailed every move).

While we discussed Catalysts and Landings last weekend, this market had some peculiar takes on the headlines, and often flip-flopped on the assessment (or at least what market prices focused on).

For me, there are two key takeaways:

The two things above (abysmal liquidity and that the conversation can now move to the time to reach terminal value) were the two most important things. But we’ve learned some other things as well:

Good luck and expect more volatility. If I’m an issuer of debt, I’m selling what I can, because despite my inbox starting to get flooded with warnings about the deficit, the 10-year yield is at 3.8% and spreads are still attractive.

The Fed can do a lot, and likely will, but I still expect the Fed to Plod Along, meaning that they will be slow to react to changing economic conditions (when they point to more easing). Additionally, both stocks and bonds got ahead of themselves, because they are pricing in a Fed put to occur sooner (or more easily) than it is likely to occur (when and if needed).

If this is what we are getting during the slow summer, I can hardly wait to see what September and October look like!