Shooting Star

The technical pattern for S&P 500 and many other US and global equity market indices is sell rallies, according to BofAML's Stephen Suttmeier, who notes that the market is as overbought now as it was in July. Current price action suggests “dislocation” rather than “capitulation” and we continue to see the risk of retest / undercut of the August 2015/October 2014 lows of 1867-1820.

The divergence meme that is the center of the dollar bull narrative was never predicated on precise timing of Fed's lift-off.   To go from no hike in September to Fed will never raise interest rates, or QE4 is next, is a needless exaggeration.  

Dollar recovered from the exaggerated panic at the start of last week.  Outlook is still constructive.  Here is an overview of the technical condition of currencies, bonds, oil , and S&P 500.  

This charmed circle includes Google, Amazon, Baidu, Facebook, Saleforce.com, Netflix, Pandora, Tesla, LinkedIn, ServiceNow, Splunk, Workday, Ylep, Priceline, QLIK Technologies and Yandex. Taken altogether, their market cap clocked in at $1.3 trillion on Friday. That compares to just $21 billion of LTM net income for the entire index combined. The talking heads, of course, would urge not to be troubled. After all, what’s a 61X trailing PE among today’s leading tech growth companies?

Grit your teeth if you have to.  Cry if you want to.  US labor market is improving and the dollar is strengthening.

"... The entire socio-economic model is now built on this and, whether right or wrong, it demands a very different sort of banking that the "pay 3% on deposits and lend them at 5%" kind of industry of the 70s and 80s. Volcker risks over-egging the pudding and, to mix my metaphors, killing the goose that lays the golden "growth" egg. Liquidity, the holy grail of markets, is possibly about to be sacrificed on the altar of ignorance and fear."

Quick, dispassionate overview of the fx market.

We think as a matter of political reality, given the German polls, that Berlin will refuse to adequately fund Greece and that they will be forced back to the Drachma as a matter of Ms. Merkel’s desire for re-election. The honest truth is that the Greek debts have become so large and so impossible to pay that unless there is absolute debt forgiveness, which we think is politically impossible in Germany and a number of other European countries; the country must roll over as a matter of fiscal reality. In March, the last figures that are available, the Spanish banks lost $66 billion of capital as the citizens of Spain moved their money to safer havens. What the LTRO gave, the populace took away and the situation is unsustainable. Spain will soon be forced into a full-fledged bailout in my opinion which will require money for the regions and for the banks. What amazes us the most is that so many people have the honest opinion that Sir Draghi is going to come charging out from the round table, from the gilded gates of the ECB and save Europe. That White Knight is subject to the whims of Germany and the rest and all of the talk of independence and the separation of Church and State is just that; talk.