S&P 500

Two weeks after BofA's Michael Hartnett previewed (and timed) not only the "Great Fall" of stocks, but also explained that the Fed and global central banks are now in the business of making the "rich poorer", he is out with a new note which looks at the Fed's latest U-turn, which has unleashed the latest market buying spree, warning that "further upside in risk assets will create problems later in the year" (for three reasons he lists out), and concludes that "ultimately, we believe the extremely strong performance by equities and bonds in H1 is very unlikely to be repeated

Authored by Wolf Richter via WolfStreet.com,

It will be ignored until it’s too late.

Everyone who’s watching the stock market has their own reasons for their endless optimism, their doom-and-gloom visions, their bouts of anxiety that come with trying to sit on the fence until the very last moment, or their blasé attitude that nothing can go wrong because the Fed has their back. But there are some factors that are like a tsunami siren that should send inhabitants scrambling to higher ground.

The dollar was broadly weaker after dovish comments from Fed Governor Lael Brainard amid reverberations from reports of Donald Trump Jr.’s contact with a Russian lawyer; European equities rebounded with oil while S&P futures were 0.2% higher at 2,428; Treasury yields are 1-2bps lower across the curve with the 10y at 2.346% ahead of Yellen’s much anticipated testimony this morning (House today, Senate tomorrow) for further clues on the trajectory of monetary policy while the Bank of Canada is expected to hike rates later.

While on the surface the market last week did nothing all that exciting, below it things were in abrupt turmoil - driven by the decoupling between stocks and bonds and the volatile, countertrend move in commodities and oil in particular - which was nowhere more evident than in the world of Risk-Parity funds and CTA, which suffered their worst two-week plunge since 2003.

U.S. index futures point slightly lower open. Asian shares rose while stocks in Europe fell as energy producers got caught in a downdraft in oil prices and reversed an earlier gain after Goldman unexpectedly warned that WTI could slide below $40 absent "show and awe" from OPEC. The dollar rose, hitting a four-month high against the yen and bonds and top emerging market currencies were back under pressure on Tuesday, following last week’s hawkish rhetoric from central bankers.