Hang Seng 40

Was that it for the great February/March bear market rally?

Three months ago, on December 4, when the ECB clearly disappointed markets and European stocks tumbled as the Euro soared, it took a speech by Mario Draghi at the Economic Club in NY to send stocks soaring...

After yesterday's last hour selloff sent the S&P to the very edge of the critical support trendline which, as shown yesterday, meant 1980 had to be defended at all costs...

... so far the support has held, and in overnight trading European stocks have managed to rebound on the back of more levitation in oil, while US equity futures have ignored a drop in the USDJPY which touched 112.20 in morning trading, and have jumped by 0.5% as of this moment, up 10 points to 1,990.

Those algos who scrambled to paint yesterday's closing tape with that last second VIX slam sending the S&P back over 2,000, forgot one thing - the same thing that China also ignored - central bankers can not print trade, something we have repeated since 2011.

In the aftermath of last week's disappointing G-20 Shanghai summit, there was much riding on this weekend's start of the China's People's Congress, and specifically what if any stimulus announcement Beijing will make; sadly for stimulus addicts China mostly disappointed and after the unimaginative scope of growth proposals, it is hardly surprising that European stocks and US equity futures have taken a leg lower, even if Chinese stocks rose and certain commodities such as Iron Ore soared overnight on hopes China will either "rationalize" capacity or at least build some more roads to nowhere