Stocks Slammed Lower For The Week (Or Why Can’t It Be Tuesday Every Day?)

After a few days of exuberant dead-cat-bounce, that credit and treasury markets largely chose to ignore, Russian headlines sent USDJPY (and therefore US equities) dumping hard into the red for the week (and the month). Tuesday was the week's big short-squeeze winning day (as one would expect) and then it was all downhill. Away from stocks, the USD ended the week modestly lower (-0.15%); treasury yields were mixed with some more notable flattening (5Y ~unch, 30Y -8bps); and commodities were very volatile. Copper had its 2nd best week in 7 months, oil its 2nd worst week of the year as gold and silver beat stocks and the latter remains the year's winner. A late-day buying panic (because why wouldn't you ahead of potential WWIII!) was led by a VIX ramming which managed to get the S&P briefly green for the week but it faded quickly into the close.

Year-to-date… the S&P dipped back under silver with gold the winner still…

Tuesday's ramplicious short-squeeze lived up to expectations but it was downhill from there…

USDJPY ran the show early until it hit its magical 102 level then weakness persisted in stocks and AUDJPY took over…

VIX was slammed to try and get the S&P back to green on the week and month…

Which managed to get the S&P briefly green for the week – but it tumbled into the last few monutes

But it left only the Trannies marginally higher for the month…

US equity markets have been very technical in the last 10 days or so…

The last week or so has seens the Nasdaq bounce perfectly off its 200DMA, rally to close just above its 100DMA, and then fade half way back today….
The Russell 2000 followed a similar path down to its 200DMA, up to its 100DMA, and now back almst back all the way to its 200DMA once again – down 3 days in a row.
The S&P broke its 100DMA, ripped higher through that and the 50DMA and came within a few points of record highs before fading today and testing back perfectly to its 50DMA
The Dow and Trannies remain well above the 50DMA but have dumped today to get back close

The S&P and Trannies remain green year-to-date but The Dow, Russell, and Nasdaq all notably red still…

Utilities just hit record highs and are by far the best performing sector

Treasuries saw notable curve flattening once again on the week – 5Y almost unch as 30Y yields tumbled 8bps…though note that bonds sold off after the European close

Credit markets rallied back modestly in the late day but notabnly diverged as Europe closed and equities bounced…

Copper had its 2nd biggest week in 7 months up over 2% as gold and silver outperformed stocks and bonds on the week… oddly, given all the tensions, oil prices slumped to the 2nd worst week of the year