The traditionally illiquid post-Thanksgiving week has started with a series of whipsaws across stocks and bonds, as European stocks turned positive after starting the day on the back foot, initially mirroring a slide in Chinese stocks and price action in U.S. equity futures as investors look to a possible - and absolutely critical - tax-plan vote in the Senate this week.
Yesterday's China stock market rout, in which the Shanghai Composite tumbled the most since June 2016 to three month lows, and which prompted traders to question the dedication of Beijing's plunge protection team, appears to have been forgotten, with the Composite closing unchanged on Friday after some early session weakness, as Chinese yields declined broadly across the board from 3 years highs.
Global shares hit another record high on Wednesday, propelled higher by what increasingly more call (ir)rational exuberance, and investors’ unflagging enthusiasm for tech stocks. That said, S&P futures are unchanged the morning before Thanksgiving (at least before the market open ramp), as are European stocks (Stoxx 600 is flat), despite the euphoria in the Asian session which saw the MSCI Asia Pac index hit a new all time high...
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."