CNBC Stock Blog

'Complacent' Market Unfazed by Quadruple Witching: Trader

Quadruple witching isn't scaring the stock market Friday, trader Pat Keman of Cardinal Capital Management, told CNBC.

The concurrent expiration of contracts for stock index futures, stock index options, stock options, and single stock futures is showing traders are "OK with the short term," Keman said. "Realistically, people are complacent with the rest of the year right now" and are "taking their chips off the table."

Spells of Quadruple Witching
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Spells of Quadruple Witching

That's usually not the case, he added.

"Right now what we’ve seen, which was a bit unusual, is we’ve seen the [Standard & Poor's 500 Index] down a little over 2 percent for the last week of trading," he said. When that happens the volatility index, known as the VIX, would trade higher.

Rather than going in the opposite direction of the S&P, however, the VIX has been down about 13 percent, over the last week.

"That is implying people are a little more comfortable with this market," he said. "They’re not necessarily feeling like we’re going to have that sharp drop, and particularly before the end of the year. It’s putting more of a neutral spin on the market right now."

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Disclosures:

Disclosure information was not available for Pat Keman or his company.

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