NASDAQ

 Markets have found a good excuse to be on hold. Elections. No real US figures and a tendency to ignore European ones. No shoe dropping means upside, a little. Core EGBs rather firm nevertheless, for choice. Periphery, in absence of news, trading back and forth, so better today. EZ Q4 growth looks like stalling with a catch-up of a more lenient summer. More to come.
"Elected " (Bunds 1,43% +1; Spain 5,64% -9; Stoxx 2513 +0.5%; EUR 1,281)

Today doesn't matter. Tomorrow won't matter either. 

Nothing really mattered… Eventually. Europe correcting Friday’s excessive optimism, in line with the US, treading water ahead of the elections. Still, the Periphery remained under (controlled) pressure with Spain cornering most, if not all negative headlines today – ahead of Thursday’s auction. 10 YRS periphery backing up to (selective) symbolic levels of 5% and 5.75% (damn’ near 6%).

We had ended the week on Fri 26 being “On the Road to Nowhere”, which essentially wasn’t that wrong a call, as markets got stuck on Sandy’s path.

So, as last week: Nothing new. Spailout OMT still not in play – and might not be this year's business. Officially. Hmmm... Yeah. Sure. We'll see. Greece, haggling not over.

Big Disconnect between Risk and Reality, Equities and Bonds.

While everyone is loudly patting themselves on the back for getting the electronic exchanges open and enabling a few proud men to wriggle out of positions (or into them) into month-end, we can't help but notice the overall weak tone of equities. The S&P 500 cash markets proclaim a very small green close but after-hours futures are getting hammered. The Dow is only -10pts (but with IBM and HD alone accounting for 25 points of gain!), The Nasdaq is leaking painfully as AAPL traded down exactly as we thought - inched back above VWAP and tumbled into the close -1.5%. Broad risk-assets, which had been indicating a lower move in US equities, kept on sliding and stocks stayed with them all day as correlations picked back up. Treasury yields are 4-6bps lower than Friday's close, the USD is down around -0.12%, but Gold and Silver are up 0.6% on the week now. Oil slipped (after a European close spike and dike) and Copper slid from the US open. The main story of today is the crash in S&P 500 futures after-hours to the lows of the day (down 8 points from its cash close).

• In Darkened NYC, Safety On The List Of Concerns (AP)
• New York Subway System Faces Weeks to Recover From Storm (Bloomberg) ... as we said
• Power Outages May Last More Than a Week (WSJ)... same
• U.S. stock markets to reopen on Wednesday after storm (Reuters)
• Questions Cloud Market Reopening (WSJ)
• Apple revolution shows signs of reboot (FT)
• Euro Chiefs Set to Grant Greece Extension Amid Squabbles (Bloomberg)
• Italy Bank Poll Casts Shadow Over Savings (WSJ)
• Shocked UBS staff take to Twitter (FT)
• Corporate China hit by unpaid bills (FT)
• Panasonic Posts Loss of Nearly $9 Billion (WSJ)
• BoJ independence called into question (FT)
• Barclays hit by fresh U.S. investigations (Reuters)
• Adoboli’s Girlfriend Said Confess, Co-Worker Said to Run (Bloomberg)

Because while to ConEd, the bulk of New York south of 34th Street can operate without electricity for days, the stock exchange must.be.online.or.else.the.terrorists.win:

• NYSE TO OPEN FOR NORMAL TRADING OPERATIONS ON WEDNESDAY
  
• NASDAQ STOCK MARKET, OTHER NASDAQ OMX-OWNED EXCHANGES OPEN WED

Why? Just so hedge funds can square away position for month end. In other news, CNN furious trying to figure out how the NYSE TV stuido in downtown Manhattan (because all the trading actually takes place out of a fortress in Mahwah, NJ), can operate under 3 feet of water.

UPDATE: *CBOE TO CLOSE EXCHANGES OCT. 29 BECAUSE OF HURRICANE SANDY

Late Updates - after a day of consultation and realization that if the algos were left alone to play then things could go a little pear-shaped - NYSE and NASDAQ will now be totally closed tomorrow:

*U.S. EQUITY MARKETS TO CLOSE ON OCT. 29 FOR STORM, SEC SAYS

Uhhhh. It just couldn’t last. Risk had been pushed higher and higher in anticipation, but a combination of reality-check, rather unsettling Q3 earnings and renewed Spanish jitters just made players come down hard from their previous week’s high flying exercise.
Nothing new.

Spailout OMT still not in play. Greece, haggling not over. Earnings rather bad. PMIs dismal. Central Banks on hold, as everything is on the table, at least for the moment.

As we noted this morning, today seemed more about defense than offense (even though stocks managed to rally off Draghi's Dike twice). Dow 13,000 and S&P 1400 remain safe. Today's theme is 'V-shaped-recoveries' as AMZN managed some magic last night, AAPL managed some super-magic intraday - bouncing off its 200DMA and then fading into VWAP to close on volume, and S&P futures oscillating between post-Tuesday highs and lows all day (with the ubiquitous dump to VWAP into the close after the 3pm ramp on cue)...

Chuck Schumer to Kevin Henry: "Must close green, Mr. Henry"

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 26, 2012

If it wasn’t because the government sponsorship doping Q3 US GDP, we wouldn’t have much on the bright side.

European equities still desperate to shoot up. Feels like too many fickle shorts and too many uncomfortable longs at the same time.

Markets uneasy after round-tripping back to OMT / QE unleash levels and no follow-up stimuli to be seen.

After some significantly volatile after-hours action, the wunderkinds of the Nasdaq have reverted back up to their VWAPs as all is well once again and the media narrative can play out... AAPL volume is not heavy (remember we said option-skews were near-record levels - implying everyone and their mum owns downside protection and will be unloading into the open tomorrow). QQQs are suffering more than AAPL for now - implying that's where the hedges went. AMZN's move was even more impressive wrigging back up to VWAP. Who is the marginal buyer here? As we post, both are leaking back from VWAP's safe harbor...

UPDATE: A Plethora of ugly single-stock moves today from NYT to P, and recent IPOs from RLGY to WDAY

UPDATE: AMZN -10.25% after-hours!

Equities ended the day modestly green - with S&P futures pushing to VWAP to close the day-session right at Draghi's Dike. Once again we saw early strength fade in US stocks followed by a low volume push up to VWAP which then menadered into the close. This leaves US equities rather notably weak after QEternity and VWAP-fading weakness suggesting the over-crowded net-longs that we recently noted looking for the exits in a STFR style. Among the major asset classes, only Treasuries are green since 9/13 with the USD also up over 1% (helped by this week's 0.5% gain). Nasdaq and Russell are worst followed by the rest of the broad equity indices clustered around -3.25% but Oil's 13% drop is the most significant (even accounting for the historical precedents). Gold and Silver are topping stocks for the year but gold and stocks have hugged one another up and down since Ben hinted at infinity.

Might have missed something today .

The weakness after the US close and soft sentiment figures understood.

The mid-morning change in mind and subsequent rebound seems a bit puzzling here.

PMIs rather bad, the rest not good enough…

Watching the 3000 line on the Nasdaq, and AAPL.