Powell Makes History By Unleashing Record “Buying Panic” In Stocks

Powell’s promise to the American people that there is a “lot more [the Fed] can do”, coupled with his ‘explanation’ that the Fed “prints money digitally”, alongside the news that a tiny coronavirus vaccine trial showed promise, was enough to unleash the biggest buying panic in history this morning, when according to the NYSE TICK index, a record 2,049 stocks saw positive ticks moments after the open, the highest print on record; it was this buying scramble that may have knocked out online retail brokers such as Robin Hood and Etrade in the first hour of trading.

There’s more: as Bloomberg’s Heather Burke shows, about 94% of the S&P 500 is rising today, the most since March 24 – the day after the covid-bottom, when Fed announced it would steamroll over moral hazard and start buying corporate bonds.  As Burke says “investors are in a buy-everything mode on hopes that lockdowns are easing and a virus vaccine is on the way” with gains led by beaten-down and heavily shorted cyclical stocks: autos, energy, transport, banks, while recent winners such as tech and consumer staples are lagging.