S&P 500

If we’re going to discuss Asian equities in the context of “awesome”, we should begin with Tencent. Tencent, which has more than doubled this year, drove Asian stocks higher during Tuesday’s trading session. Trading on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange hit a 28-month high of HK$157 billion with one fifth of it in only two stocks – Tencent (HK$21.7 billion) and Ping An Insurance (HK$9.4 billion). It was hardly surprising that shares in Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing also had a good day, rising 5.5%, the most in more than a year. Tencent’s 2.4% rise pushed it market cap.

Just days after Barclays released its 2018 equity outlook with the title "Rational Exuberance"...

... Goldman's David Kostin decided that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and in presenting his S&P price target* for 2018 (and 2019 and 2020), and has named his preview report the same:

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. 

US index futures are unchanged, having recovered virtually all overnight session losses alongside the EURUSD following Merkel's failure to form a government, while European shares rise despite Angela Merkel's failure to form a new government. In the span of just hours, the goalseeked "hot take" consensus was that Germany’s collapsed coalition talks aren’t expected be a deal breaker for European equities due to the "strength of the German economy."

Via Dana Lyons' Tumblr,

The past few days have seen a reversal from substantial net New lows to substantial net New highs – a condition that has preceded poor performance in the past.