Having warned in Novemeber 2015 of a "deflationary mindset", University of Michigan survey director Richard Curtin notes that things have done nothing but get worse.
While reflation trades run amok in capital markets, real people's expectations of inflation in the medium-term has collapsed to its lowest on record...
While quad-witching on index-rebal day usually leads to odd sights in the market, there was little confusion about what happened at the open, when as Bloomberg first noted, Apple shares dipped 0.1% lower after a size seller dumped 9.24 million AAPL shares in a single block trade at the Nasdaq open, at a price of $141.00, amounting to just over $1.3 billion worth of AAPL stock.
It is unclear as of this moment whether Warren Buffett was the buyer.
UMich consumer confidence rose in the preliminary March print, beating expectations at 97.6 with current conditions surging but expectations stalling somewhat.
This exuberance is occurring as real earnings growth slumps. But crucially, the partisan divide is unprecedented.
The overall level of consumer sentiment remained quite favorable in early March due to renewed strength in current economic conditions as well as the extraordinary influence of partisanship on economic prospects.
King Dollar has been on a roll the past three years, as it has rallied over 40% since the 2011 lows. Below takes a look at the US$ over the past couple of years.
Let me make this clear, the trend in King Dollar remains up. The first chart reflects that the Dollar is attempting to breakout above dual rising channel resistance.
The highly compensated world of active fund managers continued to disintegrate before their eyes in the last week, when according to EPFR data even as overall cash continued to flood into equities for a total of $14.5 billion, the 11th consecutive week of inflows, this was entirely due to allocations to ETFs, which saw $19.7 billion in inflows, the highest weekly amount YTD, offset by $5.1 billion in outflows from actively managed funds.