This evening, as many boomers on the verge of stepping into the golden hue of retirement sit down for dinner and watch the news, they will be perplexed at their next move. The Dow closed at 13000.71 (just in the realm of the Fed's 3rd mandate to enable retirement) but stunningly the S&P 500 closed at 1399.48 (below the dreaded 1400 level that gives everyone a green-light to retire). Volume was average for the recent lows and despite the S&P 500 e-mini's 'tickle-algo' efforts to get back up to the day-session opening levels (cutting half the day's losses), the last few minutes of the day saw a plunged back down to the lows. AAPL fell over 1.5% - its worst day in five weeks - enabling NASDAQ to catch-down to the S&P in performance terms since the 8/21 highs (down ~1.2%) while the Dow Transports is down 3.8% in the same period. Healthcare and Staples outperformed (though all sectors were red today) as Energy and Tech were the biggest losers. A strong 7Y auction sent TSYs bid to the week's low yields this afternoon but the early comments from Europe were the driver of USD strength (EUR weakness) and Treasury strength - which implicitly dragged commodities (though mixed) and stocks lower. VIX traded over 18% just before the European close, fell back and then rose once again into the close up 0.75 vols to its highest in a month. As everyone holds their breath for tomorrow, the after-hours crack lower in S&P futures - to end at the lows of the day - suggests some urgency to cover longs (as opposed to hedge - as VIX did not keep pace).
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...
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The After-hours flush in ES was not pretty, heavy volume and large average trade size... anyone would think that the market was levitated just to allow the bigger boys out...
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As average trade size (lower pane) rose very significantly as we tumbled 6 points (from the day-session open levels)...
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NASDAQ is catching down to the S&P 500 as Trannies continue to suck...
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NASDAQ weakness is in large part due to AAPL's coring - its worse day in five weeks - coincidence that it had hit that magic 20% weighting of NASDAQ level? who knows but we hope you traded on it...
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Commodities were mixed - oddly - with Oil and Silver down from the US equity close yesterday but Copper and Gold unch
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though all commodities are notably red on the week even as the USD is now fractionally stronger on the week (though the weakness in AUD -1% on the week is not encouraging for carry trades)...
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Charts: Bloomberg
Bonus Chart: AAPL's worst day in 5 weeks... at a familiar level...
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