According to CNBC, the biggest institutional trade in the past 6 months has been shorting the VIX. In the past week, the VIX has gone from from 9 to 33, so a lot of margin calls have gone out.
The talking heads suspect that some institutional trader or fund got their portfolio liquidated when a margin call came in that couldn’t be met. Huge amounts of stock can be dumped on the market when that happens.
I Hated studying puts and calls yuk. So the wizards of smarts bet against the Trump economy many of us saw coming and they had to sell to cover their ass? Love to know their political centricity....