Business

When the machines saw that US crude production rose by the most since Jan 1st, prices plunged back below $51... but the machines didn't like that, and following last night's API-reported draw, DOE confirmed the 3rd weekly drop in inventories for overall crude and Cushing (the latter more than expected) which juiced oil prices back higher. However, DOE also showed considerably larger than expected builds in Gasoline and Distillates (biggest in 2 months).

API

Today is a historic day for the corporate bond market: with the launch of the ECB's CSPP, Mario Draghi is now directly buying European investment grade non-financial bonds. This means that no longer will European corporate bonds trade based on their fundamentals, but purely on expectations of frontrunning future ECB purchases.

For the 6th day in a row, the fact that the US equity market is 'open' has been a panic-buying event for "investors" - no matter what the overnight trading activity or news...

Another day, another vertical ramp at the open to tag stops...

Is this what human traders do? Perhaps now that the BTFD no matter what doctrine has been written into the constitution (no matter what fundamentals are doing).

Bonds and FX still are not buying whatever stocks are drinking...

One month after Goldman strategists downgraded equities to neutral on growth and valuation concerns, the firm has turned up the heat on the bearish case with a report by Christian Mueller-Glissmann in which he says that equity drawdown risk “appears elevated” with S&P 500 trading near record high, valuations stretched, lackluster economic growth and yield investors being “forced up the risk curve to equities."

Betweeen Doha hopes (and nopes), Nigerian supply 'disruptions' which apparently cannot be stopped (conveniently for many oil producers, equity bulls, and central bank inflation watchers), and non-transitory Chinese 'demand', WTI crude has topped $51 this morning - almost doubling off the February lows. While still down YoY, oil prices have recovered to 11-month highs, soothing credit-driven anxiety in markets (even though bankruptcies continue) and enabling hedgers to pile in (crushing the crude curve).