Are Converging Signals Pointing to a "Pre-Storm" Phase?: One of the cornerstones of a healthy stock market environment is the absence of anxiety in the bond market. Whether the bond market is "smarter" remains debatable; we have never been able to prove it consistently. A good indicator of bond market anxiety is how bond traders price credit default swaps. As long as traders aren't paying for bond default riskespecially if they don't reprice that risk quicklythe stock market typically performs well.