Late-Day FOMO-ing Lipstick Rescued Market Pig Ahead Of Jensen’s Big Night

No notable macro today, but we did note that mortgage applications crashed after rates pushed back above 7%…

Source: Bloomberg

But the FOMC Minutes and NVDA were all she wrote and the former was more hawkish than expectations and the latter spooked a few traders after recent networking/chip earnings (CSCO, PANW, AMD). Yes, that is Plao Alto -30% (and NVDA saw some ‘profit-taking’)…

Source: Bloomberg

Stocks were sold as Europe opened and then Small Caps and Nasdaq were sold through the US open. The ‘hawkish’ FOMC Minutes spoiled the party and sent all the US majors lower but with 30 minutes to go, a wave of FOMO buying panic hit the market…

Source: Bloomberg

…which squeezed shorts…

Source: Bloomberg

…and 0-DTE malarkey helped…

…AND that lifted The Dow and S&P all the way to green on the day and pasted lipstick on an otherwise pig of a day for Small Caps and Big-Tech…

As VIX was curb-stomped late on, just like it was at the cash open…

Source: Bloomberg

Weakness from an ugly tail at the 20Y auction was exaggerated after the Minutes showed a Fed much more fearful of cutting rates too soon than being low too long, and that sent rate-cut expectations for 2024 even lower (back to 50-50 chance of 3 or 4 cuts, CPI lows)…