Another round of records for the benchmark US indices last Friday amid growing investor optimism around the passage of the Republican-backed tax legislation - Dow up +143-points or +0.58% and the broader S&P500 +0.90%, with technology, consumer staples and healthcare leading 10 of 11 sectors higher. The technology-centric NASDAQ jumped +1.17%. Both Senator Bob Corker and Senator Marco Rubio announced that they will now support the tax reform package, with House and Senate Republicans now planning to vote on the package this week. The bill unveiled Friday would cut the top individual tax rate to 37% from 39.6% and lower the corporate rate to 21% from 35%. Last Friday was also quadruple witching day, which occurs on the third Friday of the last month of every quarter (in March, June, September, and December) and refers to the simultaneous expiration of stock-index futures, stock-index options, single-stock futures, and stock options. However, the four-pronged expiration event did little to spur any notable market volatility, with the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX or 'fear index') falling ~10.2% to 9.42 and trading at less than half its historic average of 20. The main indices also logged solid weekly gains, with the Dow up +1.3%, S&P500 +0.9% and Nasdaq +1.4%. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 index rallied +1.6% on Friday to close within 1% of its record close and locking in a 0.6% weekly advance.
