Markets Are Experiencing Earth-Shaking Moves This Monday

When everything seems to be falling at once, identifying what’s truly under pressure - and what still appears to hold some ground - can be informative.

Let’s have a look at what happened last week across global equities. Using Sismo’s analysis of MSCI World large caps, we focused on three indicators:

1. Weekly change in trading volumes
2. One-month daily volatility
3. Weekly stock performance

We grouped stocks by sector (33 categories) and by country (France, Germany, UK, US, Japan, China), analyzing median values.

‍

Overall results across the universe:

1. Trading volumes: +43%
2. Volatility (1M): 34%
3. Weekly performance: –8%
   ‍

By sector: The surge in trading activity wasn't random. It concentrated in sectors either under significant pressure:

• Financial Services (+64%), Banks (+51%), Semiconductors (+49%), Oil & Gas (+10%)

Or heavily traded due to renewed attention:

• Telecom (+56%), General Retailers (+51%)
• Household & Personal Products saw the smallest change in volume (+21%), despite its defensive profile
• Automobiles, though falling sharply, showed only a modest volume increase (+26%)

By country:

• The U.S. showed the largest volume increase (+48%)
• China showed the smallest (+21%)

We then combined the three metrics into a composite stress score (out of 30), where a lower score indicates higher market stress - driven by a mix of heavy trading, high volatility and weak returns.

‍

‍Most stressed sectors:

• Semiconductors (score: 9/30)
• Oil & Gas (10)
• Banks (10)
• Financial Services (11)
• Technology Hardware (11)
• Machinery & Electrical Equipment (12)

Most resilient sectors:

• Household & Personal Products (25)
• Food & Beverage (24)
• Utilities (23)
• Telecom (22)
• Real Estate (21)
• Pharmaceuticals (20)

Country-level scores (lower = more stress):

United States (14), Germany (15), France (18), Japan (19), China (19), UK (20)

‍