Some people will be relieved to see some boring screens out there this morning. And that could be the theme in days to come, as the bobbing Fed heads go into a blackout period ahead of next week’s meeting.

A breather might be welcome after Tuesday’s bone shaker, in which the S&P 500 unloaded 1.5%, making it three days in a row that we’ve had a 1% swing either way. Here’s a layout of the swings on the S&P 500 from Crossing Wall Street’s Eddy Elfenbein:

Crossing Wall Street

That comes with a warning. “Volatile days are not evenly spread out. They tend to travel in wolf packs. Once you think the market can’t be more complacent, the dramatic days come,” cautions Elfenbein.

There’s been plenty of gloom lately. At Tuesday’s Delivering Alpha conference, billionaire investors lined up to squawk about “dangerous markets.” Adding to the chorus, M&G Investments, one of the U.K.’s biggest bond funds, said yesterday that really cash is the best place to be parked right now.

Maybe it’s easier for billionaires — who probably have their retirements tucked away — to stand and scream from their soapboxes. Mere mortals may not be able to leave the trenches.

Some food for thought from iBankCoin’s ever-fearless The Fly, who says the “unforgiving” downturn in stocks may actually be giving a contrarian signal and is “robustly bullish for stocks.” All the way back to 2012, whenever breadth has started to float around the 10% range, the market has rallied shortly thereafter, says the blogger.

“If I was running public money today, I’d advise against shorting or selling into the hole here. Bear markets are rarely starting like this. The sort of action you’re bearing witness to now is more of a trap than anything else,” The Fly says in the post.

For those who want to park their cash somewhere besides their mattress, then our call of the day has a sector that was a superstar in the latest reporting period, but hasn’t been on too many radars it seems.

Our chart takes a look at the history of the end of the bond market.

Key market gauges

S&P 500 US:ESU6, Dow industrials US:YMU6 and Nasdaq-100 US:NQU6 futures are slightly higher. Asia ADOW, -0.68% finished mostly lower. In Europe SXXP, +0.20% , French and German stocks are moderately higher.

Crude oil CLV26, is seeing a bit of a rebound after a big drop Tuesday. Initial U.S. supply data was positive, but bigger EIA data is coming Wednesday. Gold US:GCU6 is flat. The yen USDJPY, +0.10% is pulling back as speculation swirls the Bank of Japan may cut rates further into negative territory.

The call

”It’s not too late to like semiconductors,” says S&P Global Market Intelligence’s senior analyst Lindsey Bell. “We ultimately believe that the technology sector has been underappreciated this year, and despite recent price appreciation, opportunities remain.”

For starters, semiconductors delivered a solid 2.2% year-over-year earnings-per-share gain in the second quarter. That soundly beat forecasts and marked the second-biggest improvement in the S&P 500. Analysts have also been ratcheting up expectations for the group since mid-July, Bell says.

And Bell notes that semiconductor stocks are trading at a 33% discount to their 10-year average, even as prices have risen 15% year-to-date. An estimated price-to-earnings ratio of 15.1 times on a forward 12-month basis beats 17.1 for the information technology sector overall and 17.4 times for the S&P 500.

“We view the semiconductor industry group as having the most upside potential, given underlying strength in cloud, memory, mobile, China and opportunities for M&A. The prospect of an improving global economic environment should further support price appreciation in semiconductors and technology alike,” says Bell.

Broadcom AVGO, +2.78% is the top pick in the S&P’s semi universe.

The chart

Fears about a bond-bubble bursting are nothing new, says Société Générale’s chief currency strategist Kit Juckes.

In his 32 years in markets, Juckes says this is the “10th opportunity to declare the rally over,” that he’s seen. Those points in history include 1986, when interest rates fell by nearly 6% and oil was at $9 a barrel — and then they both started to rise, and it became a one-way street for bonds.

He also says 1994 was “the stuff of legends,” and then there was the “monetary policy bubble” of 2003. Here’s his chart:

Déjà vu

What’s different this time? No bubble, but Juckes says we’re still at a big point in markets history to watch, and there’s no reason to think the sell-off is finished.

The buzz

Let’s make a deal MarketWatch photo illustration/Shutterstock

Germany’s Bayer BAYN, +0.37% says it’s agreed a buyout of U.S. seed giant Monsanto US:MON for $128 a share, ending months of talks, say media reports. Monsanto is up about 2.7% premarket on that.

New York City says Verizon VZ, +0.35% broke an agreement over building Fios cable connections.

Activist investor Carl Icahn says he asked the FTC for the go-ahead to buy 50% of Herbalife HLF, +1.65% . He revealed that in comments late Tuesday at the Delivering Alpha conference in New York.

California has banned killer whale shows and captive breeding, practices formerly used by SeaWorld SEAS, +2.28% .

Wells Fargo WFC, -1.62% CEO John Stumpf has blamed his employees for allegedly illegal sales practices that have sparked outrage. “There was no incentive to do bad things,” he told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.

Samsung 005930, -1.68% is scrambling after a massive recall of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones prompted by reports of exploding batteries.

The quote

“I’ve never personally had one fall out since I’ve been using them. They’re absolutely magical, as well.” — Apple AAPL, +1.57% CEO Tim Cook on the iPhone 7’s wire-free ear buds, speaking in an ABC interview due to air later Wednesday.

Apple shares got a nice boost Tuesday from upbeat carrier reports on iPhone 7. Some early reviews say the upgrade may not be worth the trouble. As for those ear phones, this $10 wire could fix any worries about losing them.

Check out:This analyst gives five reasons why Apple is a screaming buy

The economy

It’s a quiet day for data, with just August import prices coming at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Check out our roundup of the week’s data to come, including retail sales. No Fed speakers, of course, with the blackout in place.

The stat

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un back in 2014 Reuters

20 — That’s how many nuclear bombs North Korea could assemble by the end of this year, based on a fresh look at the country’s capabilities by weapons experts. They say the country has plenty of plutonium and uranium reserves.

Random reads

New York’s attorney general has opened a probe into the Donald J. Trump Foundation

Colin Powell called Trump a “national disgrace” in emails leaked by hackers

Russian hackers stole and posted medical records of U.S. Olympic athletes such as Simone Biles.

Donations have poured in for an elderly man seen pushing an ice lolly cart in Chicago. It took just one guy to stop and ask why.

Just when you thought all hope was lost:

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