The Day The Robots Died.

Well, Tuesday started off great and then went to hell in a handbasket – that’s pretty much the only way to describe it.

The overseas session was ebullient as Asian markets took their cues from Wall Street’s Monday bonanza, and European shares rebounded nicely after falling into a correction to start the week.

At some point, it sunk in that exactly none of the problems that conspired to push U.S. equities dramatically lower last week had in fact been resolved. As it turns out, it’s going to take more than Steve Mnuchin talking to Fox News and Donald Trump going a day without tweeting anything absolutely crazy to cure what ails us.

 

On Tuesday morning, Bloomberg’s Mark Cudmore laid out the long list of worries that still hangs over markets and if you just scan that list, you’d be hard pressed to find anything that warrants the type of panic bid we saw on Monday.

But really, Tuesday was all about the robots. It was the worst day for tech since February 8:

Widest daily trading range for big-cap tech since the August 2015 chaos:

Nasdaq VIX highest since the February turmoil:

Dow down 344, erasing half of yesterday’s gain. Remember this?…

Facebook is a goddamn horror show. Just read these headlines from today (in order of when they hit, starting at 4:30 a.m. ET and continuing non stop, all day):

• ZUCKERBERG DECLINES TO APPEAR BEFORE U.K. PARLIAMENT: TELEGRAPH
• COLLINS SAYS WOULD STILL LIKE TO HEAR FROM ZUCKERBERG:TELEGRAPH
• FACEBOOK PT LOWERED TO $210 FROM $230 AT BOFAML, REMAINS BUY
• FACEBOOK ERASES PRE-MARKET GAIN, SHARES DOWN 1%
• FACEBOOK ‘STORM IS LIKELY TO LINGER,’ BUT SHOULD PASS: AEGIS
• Mark Zuckerberg has come to terms with the fact that he will have to testify before Congress in a matter of weeks, CNN reports
• FACEBOOK IS SETTLING CIVIL RIGHTS SUIT OVER RACE-TARGETED ADS
• Facebook CEO Said to Plan to Testify Before House Panel April 12

Needless to say, the shares were down. And “bigly”. Again, if this doesn’t turn around in the next couple of sessions, Facebook could end up logging its second worst month in history:

Tesla was hammered as the NTSB is sending investigators to look into that fatal California crash and the sellside isn’t helping matters. There was this, for instance, from Citi:

In short, shares are at one-year lows:

And then there was this:

• NVIDIA IS SAID TO TEMPORARILY SUSPEND SELF-DRIVING TESTING:RTRS

That’s no good either, and it looks to me like the shares had their worst day in at least a year:

Oh and this:

U.S. LOOKING TO PROTECT U.S. TECH SECTORS W/ NEW CURBS ON CHINA

— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) March 27, 2018

And also this:

https://twitter.com/CitronResearch/status/978643993327124482

Twitter plunged:

But don’t worry:

that's ok. Twitter still has one very "engaged" user… pic.twitter.com/LS0LGujwpP

— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) March 27, 2018

Treasurys surged with 10Y yields diving below 2.80:

10-year Treasury yield just broke below 50-day moving average. Watch where this closes. pic.twitter.com/ut95FJLJVw

— Brian Chappatta (@BChappatta) March 27, 2018

Financials were crushed:

The dollar rose:

Gold fell from a five-week high so you got no diversification from “safe” shiny doorstops today:

As noted above, Asian markets were in rally mode overnight, with Japanese shares logging their second best day of the year…

…and mainland shares in China recouping some of last week’s declines:

Finally, for your moment of zen, Hucka-San was back on Tuesday and if what you want to know is whether Mexico is still going to pay for the border wall (or whether, maybe, Trump is going to try and make the Pentagon fund it instead), she’ll get back to you…

Reporter: What ways is President Trump considering to have Mexico pay for the wall?

Press Sec. Sanders: "When we have an announcement on that, I'll let you know." pic.twitter.com/RFIzm14kup

— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 27, 2018