Bonds & Bullion Bid; Crude, Crypto, & Mega-Cap Skid Ahead Of Fed/BoJ

With gamma ‘unclenched’ (and now solidly negative), markets have been free to roam…

Source: SpotGamma

And today saw more downward pressure as trader anxiety built ahead of the major macro catalysts and the fact that approximately 40% of the S&P 500 is expected to report this week across all sectors making it the biggest and perhaps one of the most important weeks of earnings this season.

Nasdaq was the biggest loser (again) today with Small Caps and The Dow managing gains (as tech weighed on the S&P 500 too). The last few minutes of the day-session (before MSFT) saw a panic-bid hit the major indices (but it didn’t last long)…

Nasdaq has almost perfectly recoupled with Russell 2000 YTD now…

Source: Bloomberg

Goldman’s trading desk noted that overall volumes and S&P top of book both muted heading into MSFT EPS post close and FOMC + BOJ tomorrow.

• Floor skewed 2% better to buy today after similar buy skews yday.

• LOs selling Tech vs buying Hcare and Fins.

• HFs much better for sale across Tech and Hcare vs buying consumer discretionary.

The basket of MAG7 stocks tumbled back to last week’s Global Outage spike lows….

Source: Bloomberg

UBS’ trading desk offered some additional color:

“today more than half of the selling is short looking at our Hedge Fund flow (35/32/33 – buy/sell/short sell).”

‘Most Shorted’ stocks were slammed…

Source: Bloomberg

Semis were slammed again today – back to an interestingly coincidental drawdown level from the past year…

Source: Bloomberg

S&P is hovering around its 50DMA…

…while Nasdaq has tumbled down to its its 100DMA and found support…

Much of today’s plunge was triggered by the ubiquitous leaks from BoJ…

1. BOJ leaks some more hawkish jibberish (it owns half of all JGBs, rates simply can not rise)

2. Yen spikes

3. Carry trades hammered

4. Tech crushed

And sure enough they tumbled together…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar ended unchanged, with the BoJ leaked comments erasing the overnight gains in the greenback…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold ignored the dollar and extended gains, spiking on the Israeli airstrikes headlines…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasuries were bid (as traders saw through the HL JOLTS data) with the short-end outperforming (2Y -4bps, 30Y -2bps). That small rally pushed all yields lower on the week…

Source: Bloomberg

…but expectations for a Fed rate-cut this week are practically zero…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin extended yesterday’s losses, testing a $65,000 handle (after briefly tagging $70k yesterday…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, the total market-cap of the Magnificent 7 stocks tumbled back below $15 trillion today (down over $2 trillion from its record highs) – in context, that is just a two-month low…

Source: Bloomberg

Another ugly day for NVDA today (down 6.5%)…

Source: Bloomberg

…but of course, we will see what MSFT has to say about that tonight.