Remember when shares of Amazon.com (AMZN) used to be volatile?  It used to be that if you wanted to try and catch a big move in a stock over a short period of time, shares of Amazon.com (AMZN) were a go to name.  Over the years, fortunes have been made and lost in short periods of time by traders going long or short AMZN stock.  When it first came public, it wasn’t uncommon for AMZN to trade in a 100% range over a two-week period.  Even ten years after AMZN IPO’d, its average ten trading day range was just under 15%.  That’s practically unheard of for a large cap stock!  Just like a hyper puppy eventually turns into a lazy dog, though, AMZN’s stock has really entered a period of decreased volatility.

The chart below shows the rolling ten trading day range in AMZN’s share price from the time it came public up until now.  We have also included red dots to show each time the ten trading day range dropped below 5%.  In AMZN’s first decade as a public company, there were only three clusters of time where the stock traded in a sub-5% trading range and that accounted for just 1% of all trading days.  In the company’s second decade as a public company, however, the frequency of sub 5% readings in the stock’s ten trading day range has increased ten-fold to more than 11% off all occurrences. More recently, AMZN has become even less volatile.  Last August, the stock traded in its narrowest two-week trading range on record (1.92%), and just this week traded in its second narrowest range ever to 1.93%.  Additionally, provided the stock doesn’t trade above $859.80 or below $843.75 between now and Monday’s close, this will go down as AMZN’s narrowest ten trading range on record.

Remember back in 2014 when jobless claims first crossed below 300K and it was considered a major deal?  These days, not so much.  Not only is sub-300K expected, but sub-250K has now become the norm.  In the latest week, first-time claims dropped by 2K down to 241K, which was pretty much right in line with consensus expectations for a reading of 240K.  With this week’s print, jobless claims have been below 300K for 106 straight weeks and below 250K for seven.  Things continue to look solid in the labor market.

Although weekly claims dropped slightly, the four-week moving average increased from 236.5K up to 237.25K, which is just 3K above the current cycle low of 234.25K from three weeks ago.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, jobless claims fell by 21.5K down to 222.5K.  For the current week of the year, you have to go back to 1969 to find a lower reading.  Additionally, since 2000, the average for the current week of the year is nearly 120K higher (340.5K).

After an insanely positive increase in last month’s headline index, the Philly Fed Manufacturing Index of Current Business Conditions retreated this month but still managed to beat expectations.  While economists were expecting the headline indices to retreat from a multi-decade high of 43.3 down to 25.0, the actual decline was smaller at 10.5 points, bringing the index down to 32.8.  To put this in perspective, outside of last month’s blowout reading, the current level would still have been the highest reading since November 2014.

Although the headline index declined this month, every one of the index’s sub-components saw a m/m increase in March.  Going back to 1980, there have only been three other months where the General Business Conditions Index declined, but every other component rose.  Those occurrences were in May and September of 1996 and December 2003.  In order to see just how much things have changed in the last few months regarding the Philly Fed report, below we have charted each of the individual components listed in the table.  Yes, it is ‘soft’ data, but there has been a virtual sea change in sentiment.