It all looked great as we held the overnight rampathon (driven by EURJPY fiddling) into the US open and yay verily, the media was celebrating (and kept their exuberance going til the close with the Dow at another all-time closing high). The S&P was amusingly (and oh so humanly) bid 7 points vertically into the close to ensure a VWAP close in the futures (and another new closing high for the S&P) as the Nasdaq bounced perfectly off unchanged from Cyprus levels. But away from that idiocy, things were not so great. Builders were battered out of the gate (-2.4% on the week); The Dow Transports never saw green all day dropping 1.3% (and now down 3% post-Cyprus) and while the broad Russell 2000 opened gap up (like the rest) it was slammed slower all day and ends -2% from pre-Cyprus (while the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq hold 0.5-1% gains). Silver was monkey-hammered (on no news whatsoever - and record US Mint demand) down 4% on the week and gold slipped ending -1.3% (even with the USD retracing yesterday's weakness to close unchanged on the week). Treasuries drifted higher in yield with 7Y underperforming (but only unch on the week). VIX compressed but remains considerably dislocated from stocks' exuberance.
Silver was whacked lower today (and the rest of the commodites complex also suffered early in as the USD strengthened) but Oil's strength got us thinking...
[7]
and sure enough.. this surge pushed the price of a barrel of Oil in silver ounces to its channel high since Nov 2010... It seems 3.5 ounces of silver per barrel is a limiting factor somehow (paging OPEC?)
[8]
But stocks were just all over the place as headline-makers were assured of gains as the rest dumped unceremoniously...
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and across the S&P sectors since Cyprus, it is very clear whre the buying is (and where it is not)...
[10]
VIX remains bid... (so protection is sought and safe-haven stocks are bid)...
[11]
But the S&P 500 futures market is becoming an algo's heaven - just look at the volume in the overnight ramp, the heavy volume in the dump in the afternoon, and then the volume-less liftathon perfectly closing at VWAP!!!!
[12]
And of course, where the synthetic indices go, so the rest of the entire US equity market (and with it all of our wealth) goes...
Apple was heralded as 'back' when it rallied 2% out of the gate - but gave it all back in the afternoon...
Charts: Bloomberg