S&P 500 financials

Equifax’s disclosure that hackers had absconded with the personal data of 143 million Americans after exploiting a vulnerability in the company’s cyber defenses that was largely the result of negligence has sent its shares spiraling 37% lower. And now, Bloomberg is warning that the shares of certain troubled lenders – which have already largely underperformed this year – may also be vulnerable as the fallout from the hack works its way through the US economy.

The global "risk on" melt-up continues.

After a modestly hawkish Yellen warned that every meeting is live, and refused to take March off the table, sending the dollar and yield higher and the S&P to fresh record highs, world stocks rose hitting a 21-month high on Wednesday with the dollar rising for the 11th straight day, the longest positive streak since July 2015.

European shares decline led by a plunge in Pearson shares, S&P futures were modestly in the green as Asian and EM stocks gained. The dollar rebounded against most major currencies after retreating 1.3% on Tuesday to the lowest in a month following Trump's "strong dollar" comments and halted a seven-day drop against the yen.

While US markets take the day off for MLK holiday, the rest of the trading world has been busy, perhaps nowhere more so than the sterling which continued its volatile session in advance of May's pre-hard Brexit speech, falling below $1.20 for the first time since October after the Sunday Times said May is ready to withdraw from tariff-free trade with the region in return for the ability to curb immigration and strike commercial deals with other countries.

In years to come markets may well look back at the month just passed as one of the most pivotal in recent memory, at least that's the assessment of DB's Jim Reid. The US election result just over 3 weeks ago sparked a huge divergence across asset classes and also between developed and emerging markets. In fact you could probably start this performance review from November 8th as assets were generally little changed in the first week and a bit leading into the election.