It was generally a quiet day, with no macro news and equities range-bound, seemingly spooked by the ongoing verbal war between Trump and Jeff Bezos, where first in a tweet then a White House press conference, the president warned that US taxpayers will no longer subsidize Amazon “by the billions.” And, as has been the case recently, every time Trump spoke or tweeted, Amazon turned negative.
And then, just around 2:45pm, a Bloomberg headline, according to which President Trump is not formally looking at options to address his concerns with Amazon, unleashed a buying panic first in Amazon and then across the broader market:
- *NO ONGOING WHITE HOUSE TALKS ABOUT ACTION ON AMAZON: SOURCES
As Bloomberg clarified, despite the constant Trump jawboning, inside the White House, there have been no discussions about turning the power of the federal government against the company. Bloomberg’s five sources said that they were not aware of any ongoing discussion about turning Trump’s tweets into action against Amazon, not on the legal or regulatory fronts, or even regarding the U.S. Postal Service.
This was enough for the headline scanning algos, and as shown in the chart below, the Bloomberg story sparked a furious buying spree that sent AMZN stock more than $50 higher in the span of just 30 minutes.
The buying panic quickly engulfed the broader stock market, pushing the Dow Jones 300 points higher, above 24,000.
The E-Mini which had been propped by the 200DMA and the “unchanged” line all day, spiked, jumping as much as 40 points higher:
Junk bonds were dragged alongside the S&P:
… while TSYs sold off:
… sending the 10Y yield to session highs above 2.78%
The buying panic also dragged the Dollar, BBDXY index, and the USDJPY to highest on the day..
In short, where Amazon went, the entire market followed, demonstrating just how transfixed by the ongoing feud between Trump and Bezos the market has become.
Meanwhile, aside from the main event, we saw a strong lift in cryptocurrencies, which appear to have finally touched a bottom, with Ethereum, Bitcoin and Litecoin rising between 5% and 15% in the past three days after hitting recent lows.
The day’s other main event, the IPO of SPOT, was both a winner – pricing at $165, some 25% above the indicative level of $130 – and a loser, with the price declining all day since the break, down 15%, or $4.5 Billion, from the initial price, trading around $150 at last check.
At the end of the (boring) day, it was – and remains – all about Amazon, and what Trump will end up deciding: is he willing to sacrifice the stock market (of whose all time highs he has been proud after calling it a bubble back in 2016) just to continue the vendetta against Jeff Bezos, or will he quietly let the feud fade away, allowing stocks to gradually make their way back to all time highs… unless of course the trade war with China escalates in the meantime, in which case all bets are off.
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