Bad news is awesome news again... oh and short squeezes, VIX manipulation, and crude contract rolls are the new 'fundamentals'... Just one waffer thin mint of monetary easing...
Stocks soared overnight on dismal data from China, terrible data from Europe, and the weakest PMI in US since 2012...
Obviously most of the move in cash markets occurred at the open - but Trannies had the best day...
This dragged S&P to unch for Feb, Dow green, and extended Trannies' gains... Just look how pathetically algo-driven the aggregate indices were!! Think about the differences between them all...
VIX broke to its lowest levels of the year today, and back below the 100-day moving average...(down for the 6th day in a row)
The Short squeeze continued with "Most Shorted" stocks soaring almost 3%
As the "Weak Momentum" stocks soared (equity market-neutral funds continue to have trouble)...
This is the biggest 6-day squeeze since October 2011... to five week highs
As Oil ripped higher into expiration and dragged stocks with it...
It seems $96.50 is a line in the sand for AAPL and the last 2 days have seen an extraordinarily tight trading range for the stock... tightest 2-day range since May 2015 - just shy of the record highs for the stock
Equities and bonds had decoupled from mid-week as the squeeze accelerated..
And Yen-Carry has decoupled entirely from stocks...
Treasury yields traded in a narrow range but ended just barely higher (1-2bps)...
Cable dominated the FX headlines, tumbling 2.5% at its lows to 2009 lows. Strength in JPY and commodity currencies offset that a little but The USD Index ended 0.6% higher...
March Crude rallied 8% at its best today, April was dragged 5% higher also. Copper clung ito its "well China data is terrible so that means more stimulus" gains and following the European Open's gold & Silver dump, PMs stabilized (despite the strong USD)...
Major flash-crash again in Silver as China closed, Europe opened...
Bear in mind, today's ramp was perfectly to tag the stops at last week's DOE "Build" sent crude diving... and then oil turned back lower... i.e. this was all technical~!!
Of course all the excitment today was about oil's rally - which lifted stocks - but as a reminder, today was the roll and the March-April spread contracted notably... suggesting all was not bullish buying but covering into the close...
Charts: Bloomberg