Silver Slammed As Stocks And Bonds Slumber

We suspect few would have expected a relatively quiet kind of day for stocks and bonds today but that is what we got - with all the action taking place at the release of Bernanke's prepared remarks. Thanks to DuPont (Peltz not talking) which added 21 points to the Dow, the Dow ended mildly green. The Nasdaq and S&P had small gains as the Trannies outperformed. Treasuries saw a notable 'hump' compression with the belly dropping 6bps but the long-end and the short-end only -2bps. VIX unwound all of yesterday's relative 'hedge' premium and closed unch to Monday. The USD ended modestly higher as did WTI (back over $106.50) but gold and copper end down 0.75% for the week. It was silver that suffered from apparent sanguineness (sic.) as it slumped 4% from the earlier highs of the day. Of course, tomorrow's another day of Bernanke as the "wait-and-see" market rolls on - closing once again perfectly at VWAP...

and Treasuries had a belly compression kind of day...

Spot the odd commodity out...

In Summary, from just before the release of the prepared remarks, markets did the following...

• S&P 500 Futures +3.25 to 1675
• 10Y Rates -3.5bps to 2.49%
• USD Index +0.07% to 82.64
• WTI Oil +0.76% to $106.60
• Gold -$11.25 to $1276.00

Wondering what it was that triggered the early exuberance - since there was nothing new? It was the shorts that were laid out last yesterday covering...

Charts: Bloomberg