NASDAQ 100

The start of another week is upon us, which means it is time for choice excerpts from the latest letter to clients by One River Asset Management CIO Eric Peters, who today writes about Brexit, the "new generals" in the market (more in a later post), rising populism in a world of tech "monopolies", modern day robber barons, and much more.

We will have more from today's letter shortly, but for now here is Peters on a topic on everyone's minds, volatility, and what Friday's Nasdaq "air pocket" means:

Beep Beep

 

The winning bidder in legendary investor Warren Buffett’s annual charity auction has pledged $2.68 million for the privilege of eating lunch with the billionaire investor, according to Bloomberg.

While the sum is far greater than the $25,000 paid in 2000 - the first year Buffett held the fundraiser - it’s about $800,000 shy of the record sum of $3,456,789 paid in 2012 and 2016.

Yesterday's dramatic "rotational" divergence between tech stocks and the rest of the market, which as Sentiment Trader pointed out the only time in history when the Dow Jones closed at a new all time high while the Nasdaq dropped 2% was on April 14, 1999, stunned many and prompted Bloomberg to write that "a crack has finally formed in the foundation of the U.S. bull market. Now investors must decide if any structural damage has been done."

With traders realizing that the "Thursday Turmoil Trifecta" looms, world stocks dropped and safe-haven assets rose as investors focused on the growing tension in the Middle East, while caution spread across markets in a week full of risk events including James Comey’s congressional testimony to the ECB’s policy meeting and Britain’s increasingly uncertain election, all in the span of 24 hours. As a result, European and Asian stocks as well as S&P futures all fell, while gold, yen and Treasuries gained.

It’s risk-parity heaven right now, notes RBC's head of cross-asset strategy Charlie McElligott, with global equities (developed and EM) AND fixed-income all continuing their torrid rallies, but McElligott warns this is a classic "from worst to first" PM-grabbing into a new "Fear Of Missing Out" stage of the equities-rally.