As RBC pointed out earlier today, there were two key drivers (in addition to month end "black box" rebalancing) behind today's volumeless equity rally: the jump in the dollar, which rose on the previously discussed Fed-ECB policy divergence as well as upward revisions to Q4 GDP, and which has put the BBG dolar index on track for its first weekly advance in three ...
... and today's jump in crude, which rose by nearly $1, and managed to reclaim $50/barrel for the first time in two weeks, after Kuwait’s oil minister said OPEC is in talks to extend production cuts, saying nothing that the market did not already know.
And since the reflation trade appeared to return, the biggest beneficiaries were those sectors that recently had seen some greater weakness, namely small caps and trannies, while gains in the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq were roughly in line.
And with the reflation trade back on, banks were predictably higher across the board.
After a quiet overnight session, the S&P surged higher out of the gates, and after a close call with going unchanged around lunchtime, found a second wind later in the afternoon...
.... courtesy of several USDJPY momentum ingition events...
... which helped slam gold to the lowest level in a week.
... even as VIX went was rangebound and ultimately went nowhere.
A return of the reflation trade also meant that Treasuries fell, with the 30Y rising back above 3.00%.
Then again that is the narrative: all of the above could simply be one big fund rebalancing positions ahead of week, and month end. Which is why, as Charlie McElligott warned earlier, to see if the reflation trade has indeed returned, tune back in tomorrow.