The S&P 500 futures (ES) dropped from the opening whistle, bounced a little, then fell all the way down to pre-FOMC levels and then wriggled sideways auctioning in a narrow range for the rest of the day after Europe closed. The Dow and S&P are now red for the month with their biggest 3-Day drop in almost three months as the 50DMA comes back into view. Oil prices surged early on but as the selling came in stocks so oil fell back under $92 dragging the Energy sector lower (as CVX's chicken-and-egg with oil and its outlook continues). All S&P sectors were red on the day but financials outperformed (-0.06%) along with Utilities. Stocks ended just off their lows (as CNBC is so happy to tell us) but Treasury yields closed at their lows - tumbling over 7bps from the 10Y auction. The USD (and gold and silver) were dead today amid all the chaos - with a slight gain in silver and the USD limped lower from a better start. Gold remains -1% on the week. The Russell and Nasdaq are now the worst performers post-QE (-4.4%) while Dow Transports are -4% (and Dow/S&P down around 2%). VIX trod water with a small compression into the close - ending around 16.3%. IG credit outperformed as HY tracked stocks lower.
Notably - ES never made it back to VWAP from early on...
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which leaves S&P futures well below the uptrend...
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with the Dow at its 50DMA and its biggest drop in over two months...
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leaving the Nasdaq and Russell high-beta beauties underperforming notably...
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as IG credit outperformed with HY tracking stocks lower...
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Across risk assets, we see the ETFs all tracking nicely together (left chart) but in the broader risk classes, the strength in Treasuries and weakness in Oil along with credit weakness saw CONTEXT (our risk-proxy) notably underperforming this afternoon - as stocks clung to Draghi's cliff...
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AAPL ended up 0.8% on the day - hugging its VWAP all afternoon, which also tracked yesterday's VWAP perfectly.
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Meanwhile with just a few seconds to go in the day - with VIX futures seemingly artificailly low (given stocks at their lows) - a huge buy order comes in and lifts the bid 20-25c - totally normal...
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Charts: Bloomberg and Capital Context