Just as we predicted this morning [4], as soon as Europe FX/Credit markets closed, US equities proceeded to meltup celebrating the claims data 'improvement week-over-week' in this bizarro world we live in. ES (the S&P 500 e-mini future) has broken up and out of its 3-week range to run the stops above the pre-Non-Farm-Payroll close levels from 4/5. Gold has been relatively outperforming today and on a beta-adjusted basis, the S&P has just melted up to meet Gold's enthusiasm. Ahead of tomorrow's GDP data, it seems the worst-case scenario (from a market meltup momentum perspective) is a small miss - not quite cool enough to kick Bernanke into QE action and not quite warm enough to juice the self-sustaining recovery bulls into action (especially as the earnings picture is starting to fade a little here). 1400 next? 1404 for April green? ES volume is considerably lighter than average once again - as it has been for the last 3 days of exuberance.
Stocks (blue) caught up to Gold's enthusiasm for money-printing hope immediatley after Europe closed - just as we predited this morning...
[5]
The day-sessions of the S&P 500 e-mini futures have been range-bouond for the three weeks since the dismal NFP print. Today's extension of hope for more QE has run up to that close, run the stops and pushed to the pre-close high volume dump level that we saw on 4/5 close.
[6]