Take your pick of how to describe this week's action. The Dow was green, S&P 500 unch (ES closed right at its 50DMA), and NASDAQ down for its biggest 2-week loss since the rally began. Heavy volume and incessant selling pressure pushed AAPL to its biggest 10-day loss in over 8 months as it closed at 5-week lows just shy of filling the gap from 3/13 and very close to testing its 50DMA for the first time in 4 months. Credit and equity markets generally did a round-trip today closing near their lows after opening the day-session near their highs off the ubiquitous overnight ramp. HY is practically unchanged on the week as IG saw up-in-quality rotation and outperformed while the S&P ended in between the two as they all traded in a broad range for the second week in a row - even though volatility remains intraday. Treasuries slid to their lowest yields of the day into the close today (though off the week's best and unch today) once again somewhat range-bound but with a notable falling-yield momentum down a few bps on the week with the long-end outperforming and 10Y closing under 1.96%. Copper and Oil rallied solidly today but aside from a little volatility Gold and Silver trod water ending the week with Gold -1% and Silver +0.55% as WTI ended back over $104. The EUR kept rallying all week (more repatriation flows?) dragging the USD lower as JPY underperformed on the week (flat today as the rest of the majors tracked USD weakness) and GBP outperformed. Broadly, the Treasury strength balanced the Oil and FX market risk-on-sentiment but risk-assets proxied higher into the US day-session open only to give it all back and drag stocks back down. It feels like there is still hope for some re-liquification but the weakness in AAPL and the financials suggest at best rotation and at worst steady risk-off while earnings beats (of drastically lowered expectations) keeps the dream alive.
AAPL struggled - that is all...
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The NASDAQ lost some of its shine this week while the DOW benefited from the MSFT rotation...
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Credit and Equity markets chugged violently up and down all week to end practically unchanged - in the same range as last week - with IG modestly outperforming. Notably IG cash markets underperformed CDS this week (as financials lagged) but HYG bond spreads and CDS were generally flat and in line with one another's moves (as industrials and consumer cyclicals underperformed today).
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Treasuries limped lower in yield with a late-day rally back near the week's low yields...
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Commodities were not as range-bound as the rest of the asset classes - though Silver and Gold went dead in the last 24 hours or so. WTI managed to close above $104 again and Copper outperformed on the week...
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FX markets drifted lower in USD all week (but that didn't help Gold) as EUR repatriation flows continue. JPY was flat (underperformed) today as the rest synced with the USD flow...
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CONTEXT rallied early in the day on FX flows and Oil strength but Treasury yields dropping and flattening and credit stability rolled broad-risk-assets over and dragged equities back down into the close...
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Charts: Bloomberg