It was quite a week...
- Dow, S&P up 5th week in a row
- VIX up
- Long Bond's worst week since the election
- HY Bond down 4th week in a row
- Bitcoin's worst week since Dec 2013
- Gold's best week in 2 months
- Copper's best 2 weeks since election
But cryptocurrencies made all the headlines this week...
With Bitcoin crashing 43% from its highs before stabilizing around $13,000...
And then spiking above $14,000 into the US equity cash close...
On the week, Gold gained 1.6%, Bitcoin dropped 28% (the first time that's happened since the first week of September) and is the worst week for Bitcoin since Dec 2013...
Arbs disappeared across the crypto space as volumes picked up in futures...
Futures were halted numerous times this week but as is clear there was a bid off the lows this afternoon as panic-sellers left the market...
Limit Down Halt in CME Futs today...
(NOTE - one-way street lower since CME opened its Bitcoin Futures)
Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin were lower but Ripple managed gains on the week... but not before flash-crashing to unch today...
As we transition to equity market-land, it is worth noting that the cyrpto carnage leaked over into several firms...
Stocks were higher on the week... but S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq were not very impressed with the greatest tax cut in the history of man...Trannies were best on the week...
While stocks were higher, so was VIX unusually...
Unsurprisingly, High-Tax companies outperformed Low-Tax companies on the week - back to cycle highs...
Financials ended the week higher but were a mess...
But it's not all shits and giggles - there is serious professoinal selling pressure (Bloomberg's SMART money flow index is seeing its worst month since June 2015 as the major indices are rotated to retail)...
And High Yield bond land is getting ugly again...
It was an ugly week for the long-end of the yield curve - the worst yield increase since the election - but that rolled over as we suspect the record spec long squeeze was flushed...
The yield curve steepened most since the election... but the last two days saw the trend reverse...
The Dollar Index slipped lower on the week but was very rangebound...
Copper stood out in the commodity space (note the pre-open ramp every day) as PMs and Crude seemed to group-hug around a 1.5 to 2% gain...
As Bitcoin collapsed so a bid for that other 'alternative currency' - PMs - was very evident...