The Great Flood

As the increasingly dramatic images continue to pour in (no pun intended) from Texas, one has to wonder if maybe God has decided to punish the U.S., Old Testament-style – although I can’t imagine why…

HISTORIC rainfall in Houston, and all over Texas. Floods are unprecedented, and more rain coming. Spirit of the people is incredible.Thanks!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2017

It was a largely directionless day for U.S. stocks as everyone is kind of frozen in time amid the storm cleanup and ahead of a critical deluge of econ later this week – the Nasdaq managed a half-decent session.

Mixed signals from 2Y and 5Y auctions didn’t end up mattering as Treasury futures sat near session highs by 3. The dollar is a lost cause:

Gold surged, and closed above $1,300 for the first time since the election:

It was a disaster for Sprouts from the word “go” today as Amazon followed through on promises to cut prices at Whole Foods. Kroger knee-jerked lower but managed to recover:

And it’s starting to show in bond prices. As Bloomberg notes, “the yield on a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Index of U.S. grocery companies jumped 11 basis points last week to the highest in more than a month”:

Bonds of Apollo-backed Fresh Market fell again, hitting (another) record low 76.75 cents:

Insurers were hit on Harvey worries while RV stocks were bid on expected demand from the relief effort:

Gasoline soared for obvious reasons, hitting a 2-year high early on before coming off a bit…

… while crude fell:

“There’s a big drop-off suddenly in crude oil demand,” John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital, said Monday. “Gasoline demand in the balance of the country is still elevated, so we could see a real impact on gasoline inventories if these refineries are unable to get restaffed quickly.”

The euro is still the story in FX land. It’s now just a matter of: “is there a reason to not be bullish today?” The answer on Monday was “no,” and so… 1.20 here we fucking come (Yellen, Draghi Jackson Hole speeches in yellow)…

As far as what this is likely to mean for European equities – unless “someone” steps in, you really only need one chart:

The offshore yuan is riding a 9-day winning streak and hit a 14-month high against the beleaguered dollar:

Oh, and finally, it was a rough day for the peso…

You can blame that last one on the guy you met at the truck stop diner…

this is from last night.. he looks like someone you'd meet at a truck stop diner… pic.twitter.com/Evofz5ie1w

— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) August 26, 2017