US equity markets are up around 2% from Friday's close - extending yesterday's hope-filled gains on the back of Vladimir Putin not nuke-ing the world this morning and lower-than-expected inflation prompting hope for moar free money tomorrow. This jump is a ridiculous deja vu all over again of Putin's first press conference. Bear in mind that the USD is unchanged on the week and Treasury yields are up a mere 1-2bps - so hardly a resounding risk-on conviction. Following yesterday's epic low volume, today was little better. Copper was flat as Oil prices rose back towards $100. Gold and silver were pummeled - just for good measure (gold's biggest 2-day drop in 3 months) - as was VIX (which took over the role of S&P 500 driver from AUDJPY after Europe closed). The afternoon saw VIX diverging (higher ahead of tomorrow's FOMC) from rising stocks. For the week, USD unch, Bonds unch, Stocks +2%, Gold -2%.
Deja Vu all over again...
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As AUDJPY ruled until Europe closed
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with VIX strongly in control from there - until 2pmET for that late-day divergence, which is worrisome...
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While stocks are exuberant, Treasuries are not...
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Credit markets have rallied but merely back to pre-Putin PR 1.0 levels...
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And nor is the US Dollar... plenty of vol here but the USD s almost dead flat...
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As gold and silver mirror equity strength...
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Gold's biggest 2-day drop in 3 months... as it looks like gold will have "golden cross" tomorrow as the 50DMA crosses above the 200DMA
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Charts: Bloomberg
Bonus Chart: Something happened today... USDJPY and Bonds stayed in sync as stocks disconnected
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Bonus BonusChart: A little reminder of the concept of mean-reversion - and how it is gone from the mainstream media's vocabulary... (h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer)
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Bonus Bonus Bonus Chart: The Japanese stock market is not enjoying the exuberance of global stocks...
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