With oil losing some of its euphoric oomph overnight, following the API report of a surge in US oil inventories, and a subsequent report that Iran's oil minister would skip the Doha OPEC meeting altogether, the global stock rally needed another catalyst to maintain the levitation.
Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
Something ugly this way comes. As we noted last week, despite proclamations that any weakness in US spending or economic data is merely seasonal or transitory, BofA's credit and debit card spending data revealed that sales were notably weak. Today we get further confirmation of what Retail ETF investors have been seeing for a while as Johnson-Redbook reported a 2.8% plunge in Same-Store-Sales - the worst start to an April since 2005.
Submitted by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,
A report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has revealed that most of the world’s nations hiked their military budgets last year, marking the first increase in spending since the 2008 crisis.
It seems that the only ones not taking part in this military spending hike are some of the world’s biggest oil producers.
In recent days, we have observed a distinct trading pattern: a ramp early in the US morning, usually triggered by some aggressive momentum ignition, such as today's unexplained pump then dump in the EURUSD...
... with stocks rising after the European open, rising throughout the US open, then peaking around the time the US closed at which point it is all downhill for the illiquid market.