Has the market's "melt-up" levitation finally ended? Of course, it could be much worse: as Bloomberg's Paul Jarvis recalls, thirty years ago on this day traders around the globe were staring at their screens in disbelief as stock markets turned to a sea of red: the Dow, S&P 500, FTSE, DAX and CAC fell -23%, -20%, -10%, -9% and -10% respectively.
Spain announced it will trigger the so-called "nuclear option" of Article 155 under the Spanish Constitution, and move ahead with the process of suspending Catalan autonomy and the powers of the local government, after Regional President Carles Puigdemont for the second time in four days refused to comply with a Spanish ultimatum to clearly drop his claim to independence.
World stocks stayed near peaks and currencies moved in tight ranges on Wednesday as China’s 19th Communist Party Congress opened while focus in Europe turned to speeches from top euro zone central bankers before next week’s key policy meeting, as well as Catalonia's ultimatum due on Thursday. S&P futures are solidly in the green as usual, with Dow futures jumping above 23,000, driven higher by IBM as investors looked for new reasons to extend gains after hitting new all-time highs Tuesday.
Global markets traded near all-time highs on Tuesday, with S&P futures, Asian shares and European stocks all flat this morning, while oil continued to gain on Kurdish geopolitical concerns while most industrial metals fell. The euro extended its recent slide and stocks drifted as Spain’s escalating hard-line response to the Catalonian secession threat fueled concern the crisis may intensify.
World stocks and commodities rose on Monday, boosted by upbeat Chinese data, while U.S. oil futures jumped to a near six-month high as escalating tensions between the Iraqi government and Kurdish forces threatened supply. Global markets digested the large amount of weekend newsflow, and clearly liked what they saw as S&P futures were modestly in the green, as both European and Asian stocks are higher.