It's calm on Wall Street - too calm, according to some strategists

US stocks were more or less flat last week, and many global stock markets floated, almost motionless, near records.

The disquieting thing for many strategists was just how quiet the markets were. The Chicago Board Options Exchange volatility index, or VIX, slid to a two-decade low, around 10 after Emmanuel Macron advanced in the French election and has hardly budged since. The VIX is a measure of prices paid on the options markets. The options markets is where the Big Money on Wall Street goes to insure against nasty surprises. The VIX is indicating that the Big Money on Wall Street has already decamped to the Hamptons for the summer and is not even checking its phone. To contrarians, these quiet moments on the market feel like a lull in a horror film, the lapping of the waves in the black lagoon before the monster bursts out.

"The juxtaposition of rising policy uncertainty vis a vis declining fear in risk assets presumes a pro-cyclical success story in DC," said analysts at brokerage Goldman Sachs, in a research note entitled "A Worrisome Disconnect: Policy Versus VIX". The idea that the Trump administration will push through tax cuts, infrastructure spending and financial deregulation in the short term may be a bit optimistic, in this reading.