The Good Old Days.

Listen, back in the “old days” stocks rose when the news was “good”, ok?

So I don’t what the hell is going on “these days” when stocks crash after everyone hears  “good” news, but whatever is going on needs to stop right now, because if it doesn’t, well then, Jerome Powell is going to end up with his own derisive Twitter nickname, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is going to start insisting that “Dow Jones” was just an “intern”, and Trump is going to tell everyone that he barely knew Mr. Naz Dak who was just “a low level guy in the campaign.”

TrumpAs far as today goes, it looks like no one will be arrested, because stocks managed to not collapse (which is saying something this week), although early gains did fade completely and the close wasn’t great.

Stocks

Note the annotation in the chart for the lackluster 10Y auction. More on that below.

The VIX plummeted:

VIX

The Senate reached what they’re calling a “bipartisan” budget deal and although there will invariably be plenty of competing headlines about this, the bottom line appears to be more spending and a possible suspension of the debt ceiling through 2019. So obviously that drove up Treasury yields (i.e. brought the bond selloff back to the fore) and a lackluster 10Y auction didn’t help:

10Y

As we wrote earlier:

The notion that expansionary fiscal policy and the ballooning deficit are set to weigh on the Treasury market a time when foreign demand is in question and the Fed is running down the balance sheet has the potential to conspire with the headline risk surrounding the internals on auctions to reignite the bond selloff and thereby pull the rug out from equities that are trying desperately to rebound after the vol. shock.

This is a pretty egregious chart crime for a variety of reasons, but it gets the point across. There are still jitters about rising yields:

SPX

Here are the meaningless talking points from McConnell and Schumer:

And here’s a little relevant tidbit from BofAML out on Wednesday:

We discuss the fastest-growing part of the Economy–the budget deficit (Chart 1). Tax cuts, rising interest rates and adverse demographics point to a large and rising budget deficit. For the economy, this means “crowding out” of private investment, offsetting the incentive effects of lower tax rates. Deficit-financed tax cuts affect potential growth through several offsetting channels. On the one hand, lower tax rates increase the incentive to work, save and invest. On the other hand, higher budget deficits divert savings from the private sector to the government. Some of this shortfall can be filled by capital inflows from overseas. However, that creates a long-run debt-servicing burden. For markets, a growing budget deficit means faster Fed hikes, rising bond yields and a stronger dollar.

Deficit

The dollar took off early after the ECB’s Ewald Nowotny plainly stated what Draghi hinted at in the January ECB presser – namely that Steve Mnuchin, at the best of the “very stable genius” he works for, is trying to engineer dollar weakness. Here’s what he said in an interview with Wiener Zeitung

What surprises us very much are two things. On the one hand, that the U.S. Treasury purposely pushes down the dollar and wants to keep it low, and on the other hand, that there has been no one in the vicinity of Donald Trump, where there are a number of sensible people, who has had a positive influence on the President and his politics.

Well Ewald, what can we say but you’re exactly fucking right, obviously. There’s a reality TV show host/WWE hall of fame inductee in the Oval Office and for whatever reason, no one around him seems willing to pick up their balls and invoke the 25th on 45.

Anyway, the implication there is obviously that the ECB will need to counter Mnuchin by leaning dovish/talking down the euro, lest the single currency’s ongoing strength should derail the bank’s efforts to hit their inflation target or otherwise undermine the robust European recovery. Here’s the dollar on the day:

DXY

Here’s an annotated chart that should be handy for anyone who needs to step back and recall what all has transpired to drive the dollar lower in 2018 coming off the worst year for the greenback since 2003:

Dollar

And here’s EURUSD on the day:

EURUSD

Notably, the dollar was also boosted by the Senate deal and the euro’s losses really started to pile up after that hit the wires. Still, don’t forget the German coalition news which all else equal should be euro bullish.

European shares managed to pick themselves up off the floor today and I’ll just lump these together in one chart that shows you how the week has played out. Long story short, they pared their weekly decline on Wednesday:

Europe

The VStoxx plunged as volatility subsided across the pond:

VStoxx

As noted first thing Wednesday morning, Asian trading wasn’t exactly encouraging. It seemed like folks felt compelled to buy at the open based on how Wall Street closed on Tuesday, but as the session wore on, the reality of the situation (whether that’s lingering fears of DM stimulus unwind, the looming threat of trade wars, or just the fact that we’ve run as far as we have in global equities) set in, and the sugar high wore off.

Opening gains were faded aggressively in Japan:

Japan

And in Hong Kong:

HongKong

And in South Korea:

Kospi

Finally, for your moment of zen, here is “Mad Dog” trying to explain why in the fuck Donald Trump feels it’s necessary to hold an actual military parade in the United States which, last time we checked, was not a goddamn banana republic…

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10 thoughts on “The Good Old Days.

  1. Absolutely love the post. I wonder why Trump has not come out and said that the market is falling because of fake news. That seems to be his statement for everything.

  2. The Parade. Well that is just perfect for our “Liar in Chief” to play dress-up and put more medals on his bigly chest and show those ev-vil North Koreans who is crazier. Right now it is a coin toss……..

  3. “invoke the 25th on 45.”
    Unless I’m mistaken, there is no 45th amendment. Does that mean you were referring to a 45 caliber?

      1. Maybe it’s because I’m Canadian, or maybe it’s because I’m not clever enough, but after thinking about the number 45 for a minute (actually several), I still don’t know what you mean.

          1. Finally! I understand. It’s a podcast, “the 45”. …..And the 45th president (44th person). What does does it say about me that 45 caliber was the first thing that came to my mind?

  4. art/int
    i like the 10 mil glok–if i am not mistaken it is the preferred weapon of the navy seals. well that’s back in the early 2000/2004.
    either way i like the ten mill.
    as far as DTShit goes–just that–he could singelly bring down the market and it wouldn’t surprise me. but the fed won’t let it happen–intel the bond vigilantes take control–that includes non-buyers like ch, jp. and other carry traders. formerly known as xiv longs–hahaha.
    that was really funny–poor bastards.
    sb

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