Business

WTF is going on? Richmond Fed's manufacturing survey exploded from -4 to 22 in March, beating expectations of 0 by the most ever). This is the 3rd highest print ever (in 23 years) driven by the highest level of New Orders in 6 years. Inventories tumbled, prices paid and received jumped, and expectations for future orders surged (despite stagnation in expectations for jobs).

WTF!

WTF!-er...

WTF!-est...

As everything exploded...

From the survey:

Given the extraordinary jumps in several regional Fed surveys, hope was rife that US Manufacturing PMI's flash print would jump... it didn't. Hovering near multi-year lows at 51.4, PMI missed expectations of 51.9 by the most since Aug 2013. With record highs in wholesale inventories, Markit claims that "pre-production inventories decline at the steepest pace in over 2 years." The blame for this plunge: dollar strength, weak global demand, and Trump.

Not recovering...

As Markit explains,

First it was five weeks; then it was six straight weeks; then a whopping seven weeks of selling in a row even as the market rose 1.1% higher. And now, in an unprecedented for a bear market rally move, the "smart money", i.e., BofA's hedge funds, institutional, and private clients, havbe sold stocks for a whopping 8 consecutive weeks.

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

Simple Janet should have the decency to resign. The Fed’s craven decision last week to punt on interest rate normalization is not merely a reminder that she is clueless and gutless; we already knew that much.

It appears the 'shrug' of markets assuming a post-Paris panic-buying bounce has faded and now stocks and crude are tumbling as bonds and bullion are bid...

As we detailed earlier,

While stock markets are modestly lower, and "off the lows", perhaps in anticipation of the quite unbelievable panic-buying that occurred after the French terrorist attacks, investors have seemingly rotated from black gold to pet rocks for safety as the former drops back below $41 and the latter bounces back above $1250.