And the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate cut this week has all but cemented confidence on further gains into the year end. It’s long been a somewhat unseemly fact about financial markets: They, and the humans who make them whir, must be dispassionate when it comes to the affairs of the world. Most Read from Bloomberg Take the state of play right now: Equities are at record highs after a rally that added $16 trillion in market value this year, oil is near the lowest levels of the last four years, and ris ...

Risk assets may face stormier conditions if the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates, as expected, on Sept. 17. That's the message from futures tied to the VIX index, a measure of expectations of volatility in the S&P 500 over the next 30 days. The index, also called Wall Street's fear gauge, is calculated in real time from prices of options on the S&P 500, and reflects how much investors expect the market to swing, with higher values indicating greater levels of uncertainty. The spread between the Octobe ...