‘Freak Out’ Indicator Soars to Record With War Sparking Trader Anxiety

Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the worldAmericas+1 212 318 2000EMEA+44 20 7330 7500Asia Pacific+65 6212 1000Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the worldAmericas+1 212 318 2000EMEA+44 20 7330 7500Asia Pacific+65 6212 1000US Stocks:Markets were on edge again Tuesday, after Trump threatened to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization” and continued attacks on the country’s main oil export facility, ratcheting up pressure on Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.Investors wary of being wrong-footed by twists and turns in the Iran war are trading stocks at a record pace, one market measure shows. With investors hanging on every development in the Middle East and the often unpredictable missives of President Donald Trump, gauges of trading volume have spiked. One such metric, the daily turnover in the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, has breached $60 billion — a level seenBloomberg Terminal as a “freak out” indicator by Bloomberg Intelligence strategists — 29 times this year. That new record compares to 28 times in all of 2025, according to BI’s Athanasios Psarofagis.