Wall Street Fear Index Falls After Trump Appoints Bessent
The market is feeling mellow at the start of Thanksgiving week.
The Cboe Volatility Index, a widely followed Wall Street fear gauge that tracks S&P 500 options and trades under the ticker VIX, slid 0.7% to just over 15. Any reading below 20 is typically seen as a sign of lower uncertainty among investors.
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Treasury Department appears to be one factor soothing markets. Wall Street veteran Scott Bessent’s “long career of navigating the twists and turns of markets has boosted confidence about incoming pro-business policies and lifted hopes that any tariffs would be highly targeted and potentially less inflationary in nature,” Hargreaves Lansdown’s head of money and markets Susannah Streeter said on Monday.