Heigh-Ho.

It was back to work on Tuesday as investors, analysts, and pundits alike drug their tired asses back to the desk after the holiday break.

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho…

Donald Trump was also back to “work” where “work” means spending the first three hours of the day tweeting about whatever popped into his mind.

 

Record closing highs for the Nasdaq and the S&P. Also, this was the best day for the Nasdaq since the big-cap tech earnings blowout in late October:

Treasurys sold off with the long end of the curve leading declines.

The 5s30s steepened back through 55bp. As Bloomberg notes, “early bear-steepening was consistent with rate-lock selling flows, as it comes ahead of survey-based expectations for a busy week and month of IG issuance.” You’re reminded that December saw a fleeting bout of steepening which faded into year end:

But higher yields weren’t enough to help the greenback, which fell in keeping with 2017’s trend of dollar weakness and in the face of a seemingly inexorable commodities rally (the Bloomberg commodities index is riding a 13-session streak, its longest ever):

“A lot of the dollar decline is tied to commodity prices,” TD’s head of North American FX strategy Mark McCormick, told Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Notably, oil backed off a bit after rallying on fresh jitters about the Mideast.

The euro built on a stellar 2017, rallying after manufacturing data showed the eurozone economy is hitting on all cylinders. EURUSD rallied as much as 0.6% at one point to 1.2081:

European shares were mixed with a bias towards lower amid the single currency’s strength.

Gold is riding the best rally since 2011, but as noted earlier today, it looks overbought:

This is highly amusing considering the Fed hikes:

Bitcoin got a notable boost from the Peter Thiel news:

In case you missed it early this morning, mainland and Hong Kong shares rallied sharply on Tuesday. The SHCOMP was up 0.8% and the CSI 300 tacked on 1.4% while the Hang Seng broke above 30,000 for the first time since mid-November, surging to a more than 10-year high in the process:

The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index soared more than 3% to its best close since July of 2015:

Finally, here’s your moment of zen…

Sanders: "Obviously, (Trump) doesn't believe the entire Justice Department" is part of the "deep state" https://t.co/Kst6aWQ5MS https://t.co/edG96XMKKm

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) January 2, 2018