World War III on the horizon, Russia warning of possibility of conflict with US, and a tweet that said absolutely nothing definitive sparked exuberant equity buying…
One quick question – if, as all the “smart” people say, “the market hates uncertainty,” what exactly did it find so inspiring about the President’s tweet “Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all!” – Seems to us that stocks LOVE Trumpian uncertainty… or was it just the machines running stops again?
And if that wasn’t enough “uncertainty” for you, Bloomberg reports that Lloyd Blankfein said the U.S. economy has responded to Trump’s tax cuts, but that Americans should get used to political uncertainty for the foreseeable future. Goldman’s CEO, a frequent public critic of Brexit, also said that its opponents are becoming reconciled to Britain’s departure from the European Union, which hasn’t had as much of an impact on the economy as he would have expected.
“I would have thought that there would have been a more dramatic effect by now,” he said. He warned that the political uncertainty is still likely dissuading other companies from investing in London, as Goldman Sachs did when it committed to build a new headquarters in the city well before Brexit seemed likely.
Futures show the excitement best – futures surged on Trump’s tweet and then re-surged at the cash open – erasing all losses in all major indices post-Trump’s call for $100 billion tariffs…
Cash market stumbled on the headlines that Trump was meeting about Syria and had 8 targets and comments from Russia… and finally some headlines on Mueller were enough to send stocks lower into the close..
The S&P 500 briefly tagged unchanged for the year today…
The big banks rallied handsomely on the day (as earnings are set to begin)…
But we note that the smaller banks have been notably underperforming the market – tracking the tumble in the yield curve…
FANG Stocks gained modestly on the day, but seem to be making a large head and shoulders pattern…
Someone was very excited in HY credit today – buying over $600 million of JNK and HYG… as the former broke its 200DMA…
Treasury yields started to ‘catch up’ to stocks today… (or was China selling?)
Bonds were hit relatively hard today…
But it only too the 30Y back to Monday’s highs…
The Dollar rallied for the first day since last Thursday…
Cryptos had a big day (that’s something we haven’t said for a long time). Bitcoin topped $8,000 and its 200DMA, Ethereum and Ripple are up 25% this week as tax-related selling pressure lifts…
Some suggested that this was catch up to Nasdaq’s recent exuberance after Bitcoin was hampered by tax-based selling…
Dollar gains were not enough to spook crude, which bounced again, but PMs and copper gave up most the week’s gains…
WTI has erased about half of its plunge…trading back at Dec 2014 highs…
Finally we note there’s a lot of hope in earnings expectations…
And while we keep seing the opening ramp (8 days in a row now), there is a late-day selling pressure that is signaling ‘SMART’ money ain’t lovin’ it…
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