On this lonely blustery day, with US equity markets closed, long-only managers around the US can go peacefully back to sleep as 'Kevin' has got our back. S&P futures (ES) managed a glorious ramp into the 915ET close to confirm a close above the vertically challenged 1400 level. Volume, as one would expect, is dismal but the 6500 contracts that ran thru in the last 2 minutes makes perfect sense (to someone we are sure). The equity futures market was on its own in this rampapalooza, as Treasuries slid to the lowest yields in two weeks, USD strengthened, and commodities dropped - all leaving ES significantly divergent from CONTEXT (broad risk-assets). Nothing but another episode of illegally Banging the Close (but don't hold your breath for the regulators to prosecute anyone, least of all the Liberty 33 residents) with your friendly New York Fed (and Citadel). Gold is higher - even with the USD up 0.25%.
S&P futures slide all morning until someone realized there was a chance we would close bvelow 1400!!
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and as is clear from the following chart - equities (red) were the only market that saw anything positive... as risk assets in general (which are all open) were weak and stayed weak...
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TSYs are down 2-3.5bps across the curve
Gold is marginally higher - even as USD is +0.23% - as commdities seemed the lever to pull stocks up...
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Charts: Bloomberg and Capital Context [10]