As we tweeted somewhat prophetically this morning when futures were still modestly red:
If sliding Chinese and German PMI data don't send the S&P to new all time highs, nothing will
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 23, 2013 [3]
And sure enough, equities close at the highs of the day (up over 1.5% from the overnight lows) and back near all-time highs once again. Ignoring the well-discussed elephant-in-the-room of the fake-tweet-based-flash-crash which exposed all that is unholy about the financial markets (i.e. coordinated HFT algos across every futures-market risk-asset); we note that shorts were heavily squeezed today, grossly outperforming the indices and JPY carry trades pulled stocks up tick-for-tick. Bonds sold off about 8bps higher in yield from overnight lows on the terrible data but yields ended the day only modestly higher (far removed from equity exuberance). The Dow, intriguingly, closed perfectly unchanged to the moment the Boston news hit last week, but the Russell was the day's big winner...
Just your standard 25 point S&P rampathon on terrible macro news...
[4]
The Dow ends the day at its highs BUT unchanged to the Boston moment...
[5]
The Russell was aggressively bid into the close...
[6]
As Shorts were squeezed dramatically...
[7]
Spot the difference - AUDJPY vs S&P 500...
[8]
Treasuries sold off but remain non-believers...
[9]
Charts: Bloomberg and Capital Context