Market Breadth

Aside from light volume there’s no argument with the tape. It’s quite positive but much overbought. Earnings news is beginning to wane leaving less for bulls to respond to. Many previous reliable technical indicators are succumbing to all the money printing. Looking at those markets where QE is not taking place perhaps reveals the real market conditions.

The Bernanke Chicago speech became little more than a side show Friday. He did say the Fed was keeping a watchful eye on yield risk-taking given ZIRP. He’s a little late to that observation methinks.

Intra-market breadth is deteriorating, suggesting fewer and fewer stocks are actually contributing to the current rally in global equities... It seems that all that can break us from this current index-driven 'melt-up' is hot or frigid data that confirms the economy is breaking out of its languid range (though it appears credit is starting to make that decision earlier than stocks).

S&P futures volume was the lowest (ex-holidays) since October today and the intraday range was in stocks was practically its lowest all year. However, that did nothing to hamper the inexorable rise of stocks - though today was different. FX carry markets (JPY-based) were not supportive (especially AUD) as the main theme of the equity markets today appeared to be rotation - from defensives to aggressives. Correlations across asset classes were quite high as Treasury yields continued to push higher post-NFP (30Y +15bps holding at 2.99% since then). The credit fade from Friday gave way as HY especially snapped tighter in spreads catching up to stocks. Draghi's comments snapped EUR lower which provided the USD strength (but AUD also helped with its weakness). Gold ended unchanged as oil prices tested up to multi-month highs (Brent Vigilantes) before fading back a little.

“… current policies come with a cost even as they act to magically float asset prices higher…, a bond and equity investor can choose to play with historically high risk to principal or quit the game and earn nothing."  Bill Gross, PIMCO

Despite CAT explaining to the world that things are nothing like as good as they have said in the past and that their ability to forecast is gone given monetary policy hindrance (paraphrasing), the stock oscillated from pre-open gains to a big drop out of the gate, to a squeeze higher gapping as shorts covered to end the day up 2.75%. We explain this because it perfectly summarizes the market today. Overnight JPY weakness supported risk assets, Italy's Napolitano helped, and into the open we were comfortably green; but the moment the bell wrung the sellers appeared and pushed the S&P down (coincidentally) to last Monday's crash lows. Once Europe closed, the bulls got the green light and stocks surged on light volume running stops above overnight highs; stocks leaked back off their highs though ended comfortably green - a mere 20 S&P points off the intraday lows! While all this tom-foolery was occurring, Treasury yields plunged from their overnight highs and flatlined 1-2bps lower (ignoring equity's after noon exuberance). Commodities were similarly unimpressed as gold and silver held overnight strength but flatlined in the US afternoon as stocks popped. FX was in charge of the rally today as AUDJPY ruled pre-European close and EURUSD ruled the afternoon. VIX compression as protection was unwound helped support risk, but high-yield credit slammed lower into the close.

This week’s charts span the gamut from market breadth to investor sentiment to an indicator that measures how well the Fed is doing at inflating the markets.

With stocks short-term oversold it certainly wasn’t much of a surprise that options expiration Friday could manipulate volume and performance. Da Boyz in the options pits (mostly electronic now) were hunting down strike prices to exercise existing options as they can. It’s a technical event with an outcome that surely can mislead Main Street.

This week saw the largest plunge in US macro data in 11 weeks pushing us back towards the lowest levels since August. Fundamentals (macro and also micro- earnings) did have some impact - with stocks having their worst week in 5 months (but the S&P managed to bounce off its 50DMA) and despite carnage in its largest components, the Dow gained 10 points (of which -150 points were from IBM, GE, and MCD). Today saw a small recovery bounce amid low volumes driven by JPY weakness (testing back up toward 100 post G-20 silliness) and VIX compression as macro overlays were lifted and positions reduced. Gold gained on the day but silver lagged ending the week -5.5% and -11% respectively, with the USD gaining 0.77% on the week (as JPY weakened almost 400 pips off its Monday night highs). Treasuries traded in a 4-6bps range all week (and flow was quiet) but the long-end ended lower in yield by 2-4bps.

US equity indices are in their own little world of glee today. Treasuries, credit, FX markets, swaps, commodities are not playing along. So what is going on? These two charts may help to explain...

Friday saw panic selling in gold as the metal broke $1,500 in a free-fall move. Is this a sign of “risk on” or something more sinister? Perhaps Cyprus is a major seller or there’s a large margin call somewhere. Some even assert some countries with debt problems are selling gold to raise capital to finance their country’s needs.

Gold was Bitcoin'd (or Baumgartner'd) as it suffered its biggest daily drop since LTRO2 on 2/29/12. The JPY rallied over 1% - its biggest rise in 7 weeks. 10Y Treasuries had their best day in 7 weeks. Macro data was absymal. But it was evident that the only thing mattered was a new high close for the Dow - as we noted 10 minutes before the close:

EURUSD must ramp over 1.31 for green DJIA

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 12, 2013

And thanks to some help from the old ramp standbys - HYG and VIX - they nearly made it (but not quite) as the Dow ended -0.08 points rallying 75 points off the lows on the worst macro data day in months, with the EURUSD ramping just the right amount over 1.31.

The big driver of market declines Friday was led by the Non-Farm Payrolls report. The jobs data was a dreadful miss which leads to the major “disconnect” we’ve been seeing between stock prices and overall economic data which we posted just last week. This is the nagging and confounding reality of the QE and ZIRP grand experiment for many investors.

As the holiday weekend starts and quarter ends, what better time is there to go out on a new S&P 500 Index high? The new high was in the cards.

One thing bulls should worry about is a report that pension plans may rebalance as much as $29-35 billion out of stocks to bonds and other assets with the quarter end. We’ll see how that works this coming week.

Appropriately enough, the S&P 500 closed at its all-time high closing price today on pretty much the lowest volume day of the year. Q1 ends with the Dow up 11.25% (on ever-decreasing volume) and the Long Bond down 2% (but don't expect a rotation as it was down 3.75% in Q1 2012). Gold and Silver down 3.6 and 6.4% respectively (as physical demand has surged) while WTI crude is up 4.25%. Ignoring the first day of the year's exuberant spurt, credit markets are unchanged and VIX is only modestly lower. Healthcare was the biggest winner in Q1, rising over 15%. The last time we had a Q1 as good as this? 1987... dun dun dun...