Russell 2000

The corks are popping, new valuation metrics are confirming the buy signals, and everyone's a stock-picking genius... that is the image projected by CNBC USA (and Europe) as the Russell 2000 is now up 30.6% year-to-date. However, we can only imagine the elation, exuberance, and ecstasy that would be seen day in and day out in at CNBC Venezuela as the Caracas Stock Index rises its most in a month to a new all-time record high and is now up 312.5% year-to-date...

If only bellwether stock IBM hadn't indicated that earnings hopes for global tech were in the toilet, the world could be celebrating a new Dow record too. What a day... with stocks flash-crashing (Wal-Mart), bond yields screaming lower (2nd biggest 2-day drop in yields in 17 months to 2-month lows), the USD collapsing to 9 month lows, gold (and silver) soaring by their 2nd most in 16 months, and stocks tractor-beaming up to the Fed's balance sheet year-end target of 1800 for the S&P 500; even the talking heads are lost in explaining the charade. The box that the Fed has put itself in is becoming obvious for all to see - there is no argument that this is 'fundamentals' and so the Fed knows it can never leave as the wedge between perception (prices) and reality (value) has grown too wide... Low volumes in stocks on an all-time high day hardly support anything but doubt as 'safety' is sought in bonds and bullion.

The Russell 2000 made a new all-time record high and the S&P 500 gets close as rumor turned into almost news and expectations of a done deal by 11pm tonight. The rumor was bought on the back of JPY-carry surging once again, the "news" was sold - smacking the S&P down around 8 points to VWAP, and then the ubiquitous closing ramp lifted stock back near their highs. The kicking the can left USA CDS wider on the day, put a bid under T-Bills (though the Feb Bills underperformed), lifted gold and silver off their lows, and while the USD was sent scurrying lower (after an early surge), Treasury Bonds ripped lower in yield (10Y _8bps from its highs early on). Spot VIX was crushed back below 15% (down 20% - the most in 2013) and while the rest of the VIX term structure was bid, the Feb/Mar maturities were less exuberant.

The USD is bid; Treasury Bonds are being abandoned; the 10/24/13 Bill remains lost though; but stocks are entering escape velocity. S&P 500 has screamed 15 points higher (no surprise given Nanex noted that S&P 500 futures had the lowest liquidity of the year for this time of day prior to the rumor) and the Russell 2000 has broken back to new all-time highs (why not). Of course JPY-crosses are largely responsible for the knee-jerk move and we wait to see if this becomes a sell the news moment (or for Boehner's denial)... Commodities are not moving much for now.

High-beta growth-hoping Russell 2000 stocks managed to gain 5.2% from last week's lows and make new all-time highs - sure why not. The S&P and Nasdaq regained Friday's highs on moar hopes of a deal (and held them even on the meeting postponement) giving a little back into the close. Spot VIX hugged stocks all day long and as with EURJPY (carry) provided the ammunition on a day bereft of real news and strewn with rumors. With Cash Treasuries closed, futures indicated early modest strength which gave way to selling across the complex in the afternoon. The shortest-dated Treasury futures underperformed (we suspect on some liquidity premia given Bills were closed). Gold and Silver recovered to solid gains before the US equity exuberance began, then leaked lower all day long (gold unch, silver -0.35%). It wasn't all ponies and unicorn farts for the bulls though as December VIX futures went well bid this afternoon - notably divergent from equity's exuberance.

When asked by Tom Keene about the "modest recovery" in stocks earlier this morning (which as of this post are unchanged), Bloomberg TV's Julianna Goldman responds quite simply: "that's not what White House officials were expecting or necessarily wanting this morning. They were all bracing for some negative market reaction that's going to be the fire that's alight under everyone."

A lack of news on deal progress in thelast 24-36 hours was not enough to stall an epic ramp in stocks to take 'most' indices back into the green on the week. The Russell is within a hair of all-time highs again (bouncing 4.6% off Wednesday's lows) but the Nasdaq closed the week -0.27% - breaking a 5-week winning streak. All equity indices are green post-shutdown but we note in sectors, the homebuilders are still -1.6% (and Discretionary with a small gain). Treasures ended the week modestly higher in yield (with Bills ignoring equities and notably higher in yield). Gold was slammed -3%, Oil and Silver -2% and Copper -1% (as the USD gained a mere 0.3% - driven by a 1% dump in JPY). VIX underperformed equity exuberance on the day but closed lower. The close saw a mini-melt-up in stocks taking us back to the highs.

It was a pretty interesting day in the market, of course, since two Fed-related items were happening. First, as was initially reported last night, "Damn It" Janet Yellen was nominated by Obama to be the Chairhuman, once bearded-wonder Bernanke splits in January. It's a little odd that in the midst of all this rancor Obama decided to address this bit of not-at-all-urgent business, but maybe he wanted to remind the market that all that matters is QE-infinity.

As we noted last night, yesterday's move in US equity markets showed signs of investor panic and capitulation. BofAML points out that the inversion of the VIX to levels that have coincided with market lows for much of this year, the significant underperformance of recent outperformers (the NASDAQ Comp fell 2% and the Russell 2000 fell 1.72% vs an S&P500 decline of 1.23%), and pop in the ARMS Index all point to signs of capitulation. While this is encouraging from a technical perspective, as it says we are one step closer to completing the multi-week correction, they warn - it does not mean the correction is finished.

David Stockman, author of The Great Deformation, summarizes the last quarter century thus: What has been growing is the wealth of the rich, the remit of the state, the girth of Wall Street, the debt burden of the people, the prosperity of the beltway and the sway of the three great branches of government - that is, the warfare state, the welfare state and the central bank...

What is flailing is the vast expanse of the Main Street economy where the great majority have experienced stagnant living standards, rising job insecurity, failure to accumulate material savings, rapidly approach old age and the certainty of a Hobbesian future where, inexorably, taxes will rise and social benefits will be cut...

He calls this condition "Sundown in America".

Rather than discuss this insanity in the end-of-day note, we though the following charts deserve their own moment in the limelight of algos-gone-wild "momentum ignition" infamy (as we explained here and here). The fun began as usual at 330ET as VIX and EURJPY was employed but clearly with S&P futures stuck at VWAP they needed some help... so with 10 minutes to go in the day, size entered and short-term protection was smashed lower, Dec VIX was sold heavily, and EURJPY (FX carry) bid aggressively... the result - a 9 point almost instantaneous ramp through the entire order stack to close the cash markets at their highs on the day the US government shutdown. As Bart Chilton said - the CFTC is offline - so anyone can bang, pardon monkeyhammer the VIX close; after all it's not a stock.

US Equity markets started green and ended green despite giving back some POMO gains in the afternoon. The Russell 2000 closed at all-time highs with the best day in a month (up over 2% from yesterday's lows)... on the day the US government shutdown for the first time in 17 years. The big news was in commodity-land where gold and silver were smashed early (and silver rebounded somewhat) as were copper and oil. The lunatics had full control into the close as VIX was Heisenberg'd (along with EURJPY) taking the S&P to its highs of the day - totally incredible.

Just over a year ago, in "Presenting the most shorted stocks" we showed a simple chart highlighting the most hated/shorted Russell 2000 names with an even simpler expectation: in a market in which all the risk is being onboarded by the Federal Reserve, there is simply no more idiosyncratic risk, and as a result for those so inclined, and preferably running other people's money, a clear "alpha-generation" strategy in which hedging risk is no longer a concern, was to go long the most hated named. Since then the most shorted names have massively outperformed the broader stock market as day after day, week after week, those "hedging" long positions with hedge fund hotel shorts, got blown out of the water and were forced to cover shorts leading to the only significant "alpha" generating strategy available in this broken, centrall-planned market.

Just three weeks ago, Goldman Sachs cried 'uncle' when their market-making options algo-machine exploded in a fit of guilt causing the firm to face hundreds of millions of dollars losses (should the exchange not have DK'd the deals). Nanex has investigated the rogue algo and here are the findings... "As soon as option quotes in the affected symbols began exceeding theoretic economic values by some threshold, quotes (and therefore liquidity) on other options exchanges for those contracts would immediately disappear - bid/ask prices would go to zero at other exchanges. Within 10 seconds of starting, one algo, in effect, completely destroyed the concept of the National Market System and obliterated liquidity..." As they sadly conclude, what was the fine for shutting down an options exchange, and destroying liquidity in hundreds if not thousands of options contracts? There was no fine. Worse, they were able to get the trades busted. As in, pretend we didn't just do that. Pretty shocking. Until there are financial consequences for firms that turn on market disrupting algos, the markets, will continue to be disrupted.

Intraday volatility remains extreme in almost every asset class. Today it was bonds and corn's turn as the former saw 7Y yields jump over 10bps (for the worst 2 days in 6 weeks on moar Taper talk) and the latter dropped 4% on the day to 3-year lows (on record crop expectations). Equity markets performed the now-ubiquitous intraday reversal as early shorting was squeezed back quickly to a green close. short-term VIX was smashed lower soon after the US open but faded back higher into the close to end around 12.5% (but the VIX term structure is now at 4 months steeps). FX markets were very active (JPY -2% and AUD -1% on the week) pulling the USD +0.75% but Treasuries have been battered (10Y near 2 year high yields) with 7Y adding 15bps this week (and Utility and homebuilder stocks have suffered the most). Gold dropped a little on the USD strength, silver stayed green and copper and oil were flat. Oh and Carl Icahn tweeted and pulled Tech and the Nasdaq to outperform.