S&P 500

Over the weekend, Deutsche Bank's cheerful house bull, equity strategist David Bianco (not to be confused with DB's brand new bear, chief economist Joe Lavorgna), released a note explaining why one should ignore everything that does not fit a bullish narrative, and explained that he expects the S&P to hit 2,500 by 2018 (with one warning: "We think the S&P 500 can reach 2500 before suffering a 20%+ bear market decline. However, the next bear market could erase all further gains from this cycle. This is a significant risk when EPS growth is slow and yet the PE is above average.")

• Crude's Losses Drag Ruble, Loonie Lower; Stocks Pare Their Drop (BBG)
• Grand Oil Bargain Is Victim of Saudi Arabia's Iran Fixation (BBG)
• Both Parties’ Presidential Front-Runners Increasingly Unpopular (WSJ)
• It's up to you, New York: state takes center stage in election campaign (Reuters)
• Rousseff Hangs by a Thread After Losing Impeachment Vote (BBG)
• China March home prices rise at fastest rate in two years, top cities boom (Reuters)
• Shaken Ecuador hunts for survivors amid 7.8 quake debris (Reuters)

Following yesterday's OPEC "production freeze" meeting in Doha which ended in total failure, where in a seemingly last minute change of heart Saudi Arabia and specifically its deputy crown prince bin Salman revised the terms of the agreement demanding Iran participate in the freeze after all knowing well it won't, oil crashed and with it so did the strategy of jawboning for the past 2 months had been exposed for what it was: a desperate attempt to keep oil prices stable and "crush shorts" while global demand slowly picked up.

Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Is The Bull Market Back, Or Is It A Trap?

I wish I had a more definitive answer for you this week, but the market is standing at the proverbial “crossroads” of bull and bear.

Several weeks ago, Morgan Stanley's Adam Parker was comparing rally chasers to cockroaches (not so much due to their outward appearance or intellectual capacity but because of their desire to survive no matter where the next market nuke will blow up). Today, in his Sunday Note, the Morgan Stanley strategist appears to have a mini breakdown while slamming faux "original thinkers" who pretend to be contrarians, while merely perpetuating the status quo, and are "indistinguishable from consensus." To wit: