It's deja vu all over again.
In a repeat of yesterday's session, where US equities and the dollar levitated in a one-way trade, Tuesday's muted session - where in addition to closed China and South Korean markets, Germany's Dax is also shut for holiday - has seen early dollar and European equity strength, while the S&P is set for new record highs amid higher E-minis and a VIX that is again lower after 5 consecutive days of declines.
While S&P futures were modestly higher, rising 0.1% in a quiet session in which China, South Korea, India and Hong Kong were closed for holidays, the Euro, Spanish stocks and bonds were broadly lower as Spain faces its worst constitutional crisis in years following a dramatic, violent crackdown on Sunday's Catalan independence referendum in which 89% of the voters wanted to secede from Spain.
Two years ago, long after we first suggested that the transformation of VIX from a measure of implied market volatility to a reflexive instrument that can be traded - and thus influence the underlying assets whose volatility it was supposed to measure - allowed the VIX to serve as the "fulcrum security" for broad asset manipulation, first the FT, then the WSJ confirmed what we said, namely that pervasive market manipulation was not only possible, but took place on a regular basis, courtesy of the VIX (see "Conspiracy "Fact" - VIX Manipulation Runs The Entire Market" and "Another Rigged Mark
The dollar rally paused on Friday and looked poised to finish its best weekly gain of the year with a whimper, when in a repeat of the Thursday session the, Bloomberg dollar index first rose more than 0.1% during Asia hours before slumping around the European open as month and quarter-end flows came into play again.
In a continuation of trading patterns observed over the previous two days, on Thursday the global bond rout deepened in the aftermath of the release of President Trump’s tax-cut plan, Janet Yellen's recent hawkish comments and renewed optimism over the health of the U.S. economy.