Via Miller's Market Musings,
What A Long Strange Trip It's Been
Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me,Other times I can barely seeLately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it's been
-The Grateful Dead, 1970, by Jerome Garcia, Philip Lesh, Robert Hunter and Robert Weir
As Nick Colas writes, one thing is certain: 2016 was a truly historic year.
From Donald Trump’s unorthodox but successful campaign for President to the Brexit vote, popular votes shifted the course of global politics in ways very few could have imagined a year ago. Here is a brief quiz that highlights the year’s politics, developments in technology, and changes in the U.S. labor market/economic policy.
Quad-witching Friday has arrived, which means that alongside thin, pre-holiday liquidity and a jumpy market, we expect to see sharp, volatile moves for the rest of the day, the first of which was just noted in Europe, where stocks moved from session lows to highs in the span of minutes, in the process sending the Euro Stoxx 50 index 0.8% higher and turning it positive on the year as it reached its highest level since December 2015. The broader Stoxx 600 remains still down 1.8% on the year.
Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum via Acting-Man.com,
A Quick Chart Overview
Below is an overview of charts we picked to illustrate the current market situation. The selection is a bit random, but not entirely so. The first set of charts concerns positioning and sentiment. As one would expect, these look fairly stretched at the moment, but there are always ways in which they could become even more stretched. First a look at the NAAIM exposure index:
What is Janet Yellen thinking?
As the Fed wound down its QE program in 2014, the $USD hit liftoff. It has since hovered in the mid- to upper-‘90s.
Throughout this period, anytime the $USD began to move sharply higher one of more Fed officials appeared to “talk down” the $USD.
The reasoning here is simply. A strong $USD crushes corporate profits. Indeed, since the $USD began its bull market S&P 500 earnings have collapsed to 2012 levels.