Chicago Fed Nat Activity

U.S. equity futures are little changed with the GOP Tax Plan now a done deal and no more daily "pricing in" of tax reform possible, as traders nerviously look to see if others will now be "selling the news", a preview of which we got yesterday when US equity indexes closed red across the board despite Trump's biggest legislative win to date, while bonds were spooked by the blowout in government debt needed to fund the giveaways.

S&P 500 futures are higher, continuing on yesterday's momentum, after European and Asian shares also rose alongside a rebound in oil, as the year-end performance chase appears to be accelerating. There were several different moving parts in a mixed European session, in which early Euro strength gave way to weakness...

... which in turn pushed the Stoxx 600 and US index futures higher, rising above yesterday's session high on negligible volumes. 

In an otherwise quiet session, Sunday's convincing election victory for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition, which gave it another constitution-changing supermajority, pushed the Nikkei to the highest level since 1996, after a record 15 consecutive days of gains - the longest winning streak on record - and sent world stocks to new all-time highs on Monday.

European stocks rose as the euro tumbled following Germany’s election result which was dubbed a "Nightmare Victory" for Merkel and could lead to potentially complicated coalition talks and perhaps even another early election. U.S. equity-index futures point to a lower open, while Asian equities slide after a plunge in Chinese property developer names over worries of new real estate curbs as well as tech stocks following more iPhone delivery concerns. S&P500 futures are steady, down slightly by just over -0.1%, after closing little changed on Friday.

The levitation continues with S&P futures pointing to - what else - another higher open while European stocks swung between gains and losses on the busiest earnings days of the year (85 of the Stoxx 600 report) which has seen European pharma giant AstraZeneca plunge 15%, the most on record, after its flagship lung cancer trial Mystic failed to show benefits, while Deutsche Bank slumped 4% on a 12% plunge in FICC revenue.