Equities had their now-ubiquitous schizophrenia over 'bad-is-good'-macro data, BTFD - VWAP magic, and back-to-work-after-labor-day (volume better) but ended the day fractionally lower. Average trade size was low but volume was a little above average for the last few weeks as the chase to VWAP and then to green in S&P 500 e-mini futures (ES) saw some notable blocks go through - which was accompanied by (or aided by) AAPL's stunning revelation that there will be an iPhone5 </sarc> driving it up 1.5% to fill last week's gap. Away from the equity silliness, there was a clear theme of USD strength (as AUD weakness led but EUR weakness from the European open dragged DXY into the green from Friday by today's close). Treasuries leaked 2-3bps higher in yield on the day. However, while Oil prices dropped (down 1% now from Friday's close), Silver and Gold bucked the stronger USD trend and pushed higher (with the former up 2% on the week and Gold testing up towards $1700). VIX jumped 0.85 vols back above 18% (highest close in a month) almost reaching 19% intraday. Risk assets generally synced well with stocks into the European close, then stocks lagged, overshot (supposedly on Gross' comments but we doubt that) and then reverted back down. Two words - palpable anxiety.
S&P 500 e-mini futures (ES) had quite an interesting day - auctioning down, fulfilling, auctioning up, fulfilling, and then retracing back to VWAP...
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Not exactly a full risk-on day given the underperformance of Materials, Energy, and Industrials (and outperformance of Staples, Healthcare and Utilities)...
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In the interests of completeness (since a comment clearly indicated a lack of completeness), we add the Russell 2000 to the intraday index performance - and it is #winning - interesting day for that index indeed...
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Commodities showed an interesting divergence - especially in light of modest USD strengthening...
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Risk assets had a more stable day than equities - in sync early and overnight, outperforming post-European close, then providing some sense of reality that stocks reverted to into the close...
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Charts: Bloomberg and Capital Context [9]
Bonus Chart: AAPL - Gap-Fill and VWAP-bound...
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Bonus Bonus Chart: Inflation Breakevens DISagreeing with stocks suddenly...
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