S&P 500

The $USD/Yen prop is now actively being pulled.

For two weeks straight “somebody” was pinning stocks by ramping the $USD/ Yen pair. You can see the tight correlation between the two in the chart below.

This resulted in a one in 125 years event: a 10-day period in which stocks didn’t move more than 0.2%. And we’ve even had confirmation now that the last 15 days have seen the LEAST movement in stocks in history.

However, now that we’re on to their game, the rampers are giving up. The $USD/Yen pair is now breaking down in a big way.  

With VIX experiencing an all-tiome record period of complacency, investors are increasingly protecting against an end to the current market calm.

VIX has never...ever... traded this low for this long...

Which might explain the rising demand for protection against a possible snap back to reality...

Nothing says buying panic like a "constitutional crisis" in America, crashing US 'soft' economic data, the world's largest cyberattack ever, a slowing Chinese economy, and a higher VIX...

S&P 500 tops 2400 once again...

The S&P has gone nowhere since March 1st...

Sometimes you have to laugh.

In the latest Sunday start from Morgan Stanley, the bank's co-head of economics, Elga Bartsch looks at - what else - the eerie, record calm gripping capital markets despite the daily bombardment, so to speak, of deteriorating geopolitical news, US and European political upheaval, deteriorating economic data, and confusion about China's credit impulse.

With 91% of companies in the S&P500 having reported earnings for the first quarter, Q1 2017 earnings season is almost fully in the history books, and is shaping up as the best quarter for annual earnings growth in six years. According to FactSet, the blended earnings growth rate for the S&P 500 in the first quarter is 13.6%, up from 13.5% last week, while revenue is poised to grow 7.8% Y/Y. The rise in profits was a function of both solid sales growth (+7.8%) and a 41 bp expansion in margins to 9.4%.