A friend of mine owns a distillery, a connoisseur type of guy. He distills whisky, absinthe, grappa, and other assorted spirits. We usually hang out on Thursday nights and one of those nights he went on about the history of distilling. One detail he shared that stayed with me just for the imagery is that back in the 18th century, when someone went down into the area where primary fermentation was taking place, they would tie a rope around his waist and pull him out if he didn’t come back after a certain period of time. People would routinely faint in there from CO2 asphyxiation and if they weren’t pulled out immediately, they could suffocate and die.

Whether you want to picture a canary in a coalmine or a distiller in a fermentation room, it’s time to check on that bird or pull on that rope. Things could get a little nutty over the next few weeks and months, and the gambling sector could very well take a lead role as indicator. In fact, it might already be doing so.

We just saw three all time records over the last 8 trading days in the U.S. equity markets. The first was the pace of the selloff, the major indexes shedding more points last week than any other week in history. Second, the same indexes gained back more points just yesterday than any other day in history. Notice though, which stocks kept falling despite the record rally – specifically the most highly leveraged and overbought U.S. casino momentum stocks.

Leave that last point to one side though for a second. I didn’t mention the third record yet, which is the craziest of the three. Long term Treasuries rallied so hard that yields collapsed by a higher percentage than any other week in history. There isn’t even a close second place. Last week, yields on the 10Y fell 23.4%, a total of 34.4 basis points on the week. The runner up was the second week of December 2008 at 17.7%. Counting from February 19th, yields on the 10Y collapsed a total of 54 basis points from top to bottom, for a mind-numbing fall of 33% in all of 8 trading days.